A new short memoir by Loretta Lynn ostensibly about her friendship with Patsy Cline. It’s an enjoyable book to be sure, telling a version of the story that is told in the previous book Coal Miner’s Daughter, and the movie too, and other versions that are out there. It’s a friendship memoir, and it falls into one of the prefigurations that these kinds of memoirs sometimes fall into. It’s not one of those one-sided memoirs where you start to get the impression that the writer was not actually as close to the more famous person than they seem to indicate (I have one in mind I won’t name) but it is a little more like a memoir “about” a friendship, but really it’s mostly about the writer. Loretta Lynn’s life and story are fascinating and worth telling, and she was a good friend of Patsy Cline, so far as I can tell, but there’s not a ton of that friendship in this book. It’s mostly a memoir of Loretta Lynn with a few choice scenes from the friendship or times when Patsy Cline, whose fame predated Lynn by a few years, help Lynn out in some important ways. The book is honest and direct about a lot of topics, and Loretta Lynn comes across as a very genuine, kind, and loving person. Patsy Cline comes off as feisty and earnest, and there’s a few moments that come close to “kicking up dirt” but it’s not clear how much dirt got kicked up in the end.
(PHoto: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52544834-me-patsy-kickin-up-dust)