Dolly: The Biography

Rating:
Summary: A treasure!
Review: For anyone even slightly fascinated by Dolly (and who ISN'T?), this book gives rare and detailed insights into the life and mind of a true music icon. Ms. Nash shares not only facts and history, but "up close and personal" information gleaned from her own interactions and time spent with Dolly. A rare opportunity to glimpse the life and persona of this musician who continues to grip the music industry throughout the decades...Dolly's ongoing and unrelenting "star status" illustrates her enduring charisma that never ceases to perpetuate the adoration, fondness, and loyalty of fans and the American music scene.
Despite the fact that this republishing of this book reveals relatively limited updates and leaves the reader wanting even MORE, the biography is and remains a classic that stands the test of time...much like Dolly herself!

Rating:
Summary: 25 Year Old Book Barely Updated!!
Review: I can't believe this 1978 book has been reprinted exactly as it was 25 years ago with only a tacked on chapter for the last 25 years!!! Not one word from the original book appears to have been changed, thus you get long dead people like Marty Robbins being quoted as if they were still around, even the forward is the same as it was in 1978 comparing Dolly to Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Tiegs!!! First time readers might think they have fallen into a time warp as the book is written in the present tense much like a magazine article (which made the book dated VERY early on like say 1980). It's pretty shocking to read chapter and chapter on 1977 and 1978 and then bam - one chapter for 1979-2003!!

The book itself wasn't so great even in 1978 - Ms. Nash has a very bad habit of quoting "anonymous insiders" thoroughout the book many of whom make comments that Dolly is making bad career decisions and suggest she is about to mess up her career big time! Even these ridiculous comments were not deleted from this new (sic) edition!! Ms. Nash can be downright catty herself at times, especially to Parton's first biographer who put out a paperback the year before and whom Nash ludricously blames for a lack of participation by the Parton family with her book. (Nash wrote a rather nasty article for WRITER'S DIGEST after her book came out that claimed in essence Dolly tried to sabatoge her book, Ms. Nash fails to make any comments of the kind here in her "update" chapter.)

The repackaging of this old book with a recent cover photo of Dolly must be considered the literary equivalent of all those endless low-budget CD reissues of those very early teenaged tracks of hers like "Letter to Heaven" and "Making Believe" (cheapie productions that don't even sound like her) that are found in dollar stores. Alas, this publisher expects the consumer to cough up quite a pretty penny more than those budget CD companies.

If Alanna Nash wanted to bring this book back into print she should have rewritten it so it would make sense to a 2003 reader, instead it's just an tacky and lazy attempt to make a few extra bucks from the never ending public fascination with the great Dolly Parton!!