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We aren’t always super feminist all the time, but somedays, like this one, we are, mostly on accident.  Dear readers, please consider this your official invitation to join us for another Virtual Book Club on Friday, September 17 at 7:30 p.m. CST to discuss Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale  (currently available for FREE through KindleUnlimited) and its follow up The Testaments.  We aren’t planning to get into the show, even though Ashley is caught up, so don’t feel like you need to watch that too, just read the books, and prepare to get more in touch with your inner feminist.

Sarah Smarsh is a journalist by trade and education. She has been published in such periodicals as The New York Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Harper’s among numerous others.  Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, her first book, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2018. She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2020. In previous iterations of Sarah’s career, she was a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and former writing professor. She frequently speaks and commentates on economic inequality while she lives and writes in Kansas. 

Smarsh is, undeniably, a woman I would consider my people. This was the first bit of her writing that I read, but I heard her speak on Dolly Parton’s America Podcast when I listened to it as it was released in late 2019. When I saw that Smarsh was releasing her 2017 series of articles about Dolly Parton which were first published in No Depression magazine I…had to wait for the dang book to cycle through a bajillion other people’s holds so that I could finally read it – because I hadn’t recommended it in time to beat the holds line. A line from the foreword really explains the cultural zeitgeist of the time in which they were written: “The moment in which the writing emerged – outlined just before the first Women’s March, completed just before the mainstream explosion of the #MeToo movement- is palpable in these pages.” It’s 205 quick pages of nonfiction about everyone’s favorite Tennessean. If you don’t think that Dolly Parton is EVERYONE’S favorite Tennessean, I don’t know if we’re living on the same planet. I just fell in love with Dolly a little bit more with every word I read.

She Come By It Natural is a tale of working class women’s feminism, even if they don’t call it that. “There is, then, intellectual knowledge—the stuff of research studies and think pieces—and there is experiential knowing. Both are important, and women from all backgrounds might possess both. But we rarely exalt the knowing, which is the only kind of feminism many working women have.” I have 45 more highlights just like this where Smarsh cuts me to the core of my college-educated, white woman’s privilege. Some of them make me laugh, some make me cry tears of rage, and others had me pumping my fist in the air in solidarity with both Parton’s life story and Smarsh’s commentary upon it. 

I think She Come By It Natural should be required reading for anyone wanting to participate in any cultural and political discussions about feminism in America. Any reader can learn new ways to understand how feminism has changed – and changed during – the career of such a household name as Dolly Parton. It’s a five star read for fabulous non-fiction writing that kept me engaged and wanting more. Smarsh will remain on my radar for a long time to come, and I’ll probably go deep dive more of Dolly’s life and music in the near future. Dolly is the kind of godmother I want to be to my niece as she has been to Miley Cyrus, loving and supportive and accepting in everything she does.

Dolly for President.

~Ashley

I love it when a plan comes together.  Not my week, but Heart.Wants.Books plan of reading and discussing She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs by Sarah Smarsh.  As a Nashville native, I grew up visiting my Nashville native grandparents and watching, not Porter Wagoner’s show, but Lawrence Welk’s, on reruns of course, but watching nonetheless.  We also went to Opryland regularly, and my mom and grandparents even have a couple of stories of interacting with Carl and Dolly they like to tell, so I was very excited to read this take on Dolly and her life and inspiration, and to learn more than I’ve ever known about how she got her start.  

Oh dear readers, I’m not even sure what I expected from this book, but Smarsh hit it out of the park with She Come By It Natural.  It is a discussion of why country music is still a staple in the American music scene and should be even bigger than it is.  But it is also an ode to Dolly Parton as a storyteller, a philanthropist, and a genuinely amazing human being.  Smarsh clearly shows how Dolly is one of the few that made it out – out of poverty, out of the small town, and out of the shadow of men.  Others didn’t make it all the way out, but Dolly’s songs are an inspiration and an example.  I didn’t realize how dark 9 to 5 was when I first saw it as a child, but Smarsh is right, it is.  However, as a child, it was an inspiration to fight to be treated like a person, regardless of my position and what others thought of me and the place they thought was mine.  

If you don’t understand why Dolly Parton is everyone’s favorite Tennessean, Smarsh explains that too, but there’s more!  In this book, Smarsh talks about the Smoky Mountains burning and people commenting that Dolly would save the region.  If you weren’t in Tennessee when that happened, maybe you don’t believe that really happened, but it did, both people saying that and her coming to the rescue.  Dolly Parton created Dollywood to bring jobs and tourists to Sevier County, her home, and it is still a destination with even more jobs and tourist opportunities built around it.  Dolly developed the now international Imagination Library with the goal of putting age-appropriate books in the hands of pre-school children in Sevier County (however, the funding has become complex for this, and I’m happy to chat if you’re interested – DM me).  And yes friends, when the pandemic hit, she gave generously to support Vanderbilt University’s vaccine research.  I wish I could find it now, but a year or so ago, the vaccine efforts were listed as sponsored by a handful of giant companies, and one Dolly Parton.  

So yes friends, if Dolly Parton runs for president, governor, or just about anything on my ballot, she’s VERY likely to get my vote, and I’ll most definitely support her if she gets elected.  I would probably even use my college-educated, white woman’s privilege to work for her campaign, and gladly do so in honor of the women who don’t share in that privilege and rely on others like Queen Dolly to inspire them to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  

In case it isn’t clear, I also give Sarah Smarsh’s She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs an emphatic five stars.  I’m super interested in her first book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth and also Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business and Dolly Parton, Songwriter, Storyteller: My Life in Lyrics both by Dolly Parton.  I knew I loved Dolly, but now I have many more reasons, and I’m guessing each subsequent book will lead to many, many more.

What non-political person would you hands-down support in a bid for public office, and why?

~Nikki

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