Tressie McMillan Cottom

The Greatest Story Dolly Parton Ever Wrote Was Herself

By Tressie McMillan Cottom

Loving Dolly Rebecca Parton was easy. She was beautiful, funny and kind. Rumor has it that she was a prankster who could tell a good dirty joke. She was a country music original, a glittering pop star, a scene-stealing actress, a cultural icon and an unparalleled humanitarian. By the final decade of her 60-plus-year career, loving her had become something of a public sacrament. But Dolly didn’t see herself as a saint; she identified as something we needed even more: a writer.

Despite the way we all loved Dolly, I don’t think that many of us ever really understood that about her. We hung on to the stories she told us about how she grew up with a lot of love and not........

© The New York Times