Okay, so I friggin loved the movie Coal Miner's Daughter when I was a kid, and I think it must have started my life-long love affair with little miss Sissy Spacek (and maybe Levon Helm too). I was too young to realize it was probably pretty wrong for a grown man in his 20's to go so hard after a 13 year-old, but let's not get bogged down in details, people! The story of her struggle from poverty, her climb through the country music industry and growth from little girl to a woman is inspiring.
And then one day I realized I couldn't believe I hadn't actually read the book! So the hubs gave it to me for my 40th birthday, and I dove right in. The book is really lovely in that it tells the story in Loretta's "true" voice as in, it talks like she talks......hollar, not hollow. After seeing the movie, I can't help but notice it glosses over some really ugly scenes in the movie (her wedding night would be the biggest example and maybe also an allusion to a pill addiction) and makes them seem a lot nicer than they probably should be. But it's hard not to love Loretta with her down-to-earth simplicity and Southern mountain charm.
And so once I finished it I went on to her more recent memoir, Still Woman Enough, written in 2002. This book is much more honest than the first and goes much more into the more difficult times in Loretta's life including troubles she ran into with promoters, producers and such; difficulties with being a mother on the road away from her children; and her long and sometimes tumultuous marriage with her husband of 50 years, "Doolittle" Lynn. She talks about the things the movie Coal Miner's Daughter got right and got wrong and how her life changed after that.
And so I came away feeling like I knew and understood Loretta Lynn much better than just by the cutesy 80's movie. Because let's be real, that movie took a really inappropriate relationship and made it into a real Hollywood love story. (And if you read the second book, you'll realize it really wasn't.) I still think Loretta may be trying to be too polite and not say all the things she'd really like to say. Maybe if she wrote a book now it would get all her true feelings out at last!
And then one day I realized I couldn't believe I hadn't actually read the book! So the hubs gave it to me for my 40th birthday, and I dove right in. The book is really lovely in that it tells the story in Loretta's "true" voice as in, it talks like she talks......hollar, not hollow. After seeing the movie, I can't help but notice it glosses over some really ugly scenes in the movie (her wedding night would be the biggest example and maybe also an allusion to a pill addiction) and makes them seem a lot nicer than they probably should be. But it's hard not to love Loretta with her down-to-earth simplicity and Southern mountain charm.
And so once I finished it I went on to her more recent memoir, Still Woman Enough, written in 2002. This book is much more honest than the first and goes much more into the more difficult times in Loretta's life including troubles she ran into with promoters, producers and such; difficulties with being a mother on the road away from her children; and her long and sometimes tumultuous marriage with her husband of 50 years, "Doolittle" Lynn. She talks about the things the movie Coal Miner's Daughter got right and got wrong and how her life changed after that.
And so I came away feeling like I knew and understood Loretta Lynn much better than just by the cutesy 80's movie. Because let's be real, that movie took a really inappropriate relationship and made it into a real Hollywood love story. (And if you read the second book, you'll realize it really wasn't.) I still think Loretta may be trying to be too polite and not say all the things she'd really like to say. Maybe if she wrote a book now it would get all her true feelings out at last!
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