Lynn Melnick reads from and discusses her new memoir, I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton, a meditation on her grueling effort to reclaim her voice in the wake of loss and trauma, and Parton’s dual identities as feminist icon and objectified sex symbol.
“What Melnick has managed is beyond mere tribute, and beyond biography—it is a rich, close reading of multiple lives that sometimes find themselves touching,” writes Hanif Abdurraqib. “The narratives in this book are masterfully presented and do justice not only to the life of its central subject but also to the life of its writer.”