Bluebird Café in Nashville is home to some of the best short story writers. After all, history is what makes a wonderful country song. And every writer – especially the established ones, like the novelist James Patterson, knows how difficult that can be. “I really tried to write some country-western songs,” he said.
Correspondent Lee Cowan asked, “Have you ever done that?”
“No!”
This is because, in part, Patterson was too busy to become a novelist. He has written or co-written more than 200 of them and has more bestsellers than anyone.
He is at home in Music City. He earned his master’s degree from Vanderbilt University and never forgot the faces of wannabee country stars wandering from bar to bar: “You could not sit in one of these bars for more than 10 minutes without getting out of the way. , to sit. and playing “.
For his latest novel, Patterson decided to write about someone who does not come to Nashville with dreams of becoming one. He even admits that it’s a story as worn as an old pickup, so he needed a co-author who had really lived this life to give the book a little sparkle.
I asked him, “Why do you need me?” “You are doing very well alone!” Said Dolly Parton.
Patterson noted, “He said, ‘This is the guy who writes about serial killers, right?’
“Yes, I knew that.”
CBS News
It may seem like a strange couple at first – the girl from the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, who became one of the queens of country music, working with a former Manhattan advertising executive who became a bookworm, who just touched a guitar inside. ZOE.
They had met until 2019, when Patterson flew to Nashville to present Parton’s idea. She would even pick him up at the airport. “I’m always there to get him. I would not dream of letting him come to town.”
“It’s so sweet,” Cowan said.
“But you do it out of respect. But I just will not send anyone to follow me if I can be there.”
“If you had not clicked and you did not particularly like each other, would it have worked?”
“It would not have happened, no,” Patterson said.
“No, we did not have to do that,” he said. “I do not make so many friends. Many of my old friends have gone on. And I have some friends, you know, but trusting them after you become famous, you do not know who is a friend and who is not.”
Little, Brown
Their collaboration is called “Run, Rose, Run”, the story of a young country singer named AnnieLee who comes to Nashville to discover that the music industry can be just as heartbreaking as the secret it carries.
AnnieLee finds solace in a retired country music icon named Ruthanna, read in the audiobook by – who else? – Parton herself.
It showed a perfect, blood red nail in AnnieLee’s heart. “Here is my advice to you, AnnieLee Keyes,” he said. “Get out of Nashville as long as you can.”
Annie Lee swallowed. “Sorry?” she exhaled.
“It is a difficult, hard job,” Ruthana said. “A tiny thing like you? Will they chew on you and spit on you like a grill?”
“I hope to play that character when we make a book of the book, something we hope to do at some point,” Parton said.
“The book is, in many ways, a kind of warning story for the music industry,” Cowan said.
“It is. It shows a lot of the dark side that the people who were in it, like me, you know, because you experienced it.”
“Did you experience many of them ??”
“Oh, yes,” said Parton. “You see it all. All the managers, the people who will tear you apart, try to steal your songs, cheat on you, do anything. I’ve seen it all.”
It was a pool of country music research for Patterson, but as she has been all her life, Parton does not go out of her way to do it halfway: “If I take a job, a collaboration with someone, I will do it. I mean, how could I promote this book without my participation? How would I allow it? “Because if people asked me, I would feel like the biggest liar in the world.”
Instead of just writing dialogues or helping to exclude chapters, Parton added songs.
Cowan asked, “Did they come to you very easily?”
“Oh yes. My songs come easily, especially if I know what I’m writing about.”
Patterson’s characters were shaped by lyrics written by Parton herself.
To hear Dolly Parton sing “Dark Night, Bright Future” from the album “Run, Rose, Run”, click on the player below:
Dolly Parton – Dark Night, Bright Future (Official sound) with
Dolly Parton on YouTube
Patterson said: “A few days after I got there, he sent me the lyrics to seven songs.”
“Do you write seven songs in a few days?”
“Well, he was sending me pages and I was getting ideas for the songs,” she replied. “And suddenly, it was like that τα- δα! You write songs, he writes books. And so, as soon as I started doing it, I didn’t think of anything. “
The album with Parton’s 12 original songs will be released this week alongside the novel. This is rare.
Writing is where Parton and Patterson look more alike than you think. it’s not a chore for either of them. It is both a joy and a necessity.
Cowan asked, “Do you still write almost every day?”
“Oh, I keep writing,” Parton said. “I always write something down.”
“Do you write things on the back of envelopes?”
“Oh, I write on everything. Anything. Chewing gum paper. Kleenex boxes. All writers do.”
“Yes, they do,” Patterson said.
“Are you doing the same thing?”
“E-ha. Yes, what I do not do anymore is not get up in the middle of the night and write things,” he said. “My belief is that, if it’s good, I’ll remember it. There are too many times I get up in the morning and look at it and say ‘What?'”
Parton added, “When you dreamed it. Yes, I dreamed things, but I’m not lazy enough like some people to not get up.”
They are both champions of literacy – Parton’s father could not read, so he loved every book that came into her house: “I write a song about everything, that’s how I wrote (singing)” Books, books. I love books The way they smell, feel and look. From the first glance I was stuck in books, books, books. A little song for my children “.
For the past 25 years or so, the Imagination Library has donated more than 150 million books to children under the age of five. For his part, Patterson quietly donated millions of dollars to school libraries, as well as independent bookstores and more.
“Only 45% of children in this country read at primary school level,” he said. “Which is a shame.”
CBS News
Thus, two of the biggest names in their respective fields not only share a cause (and a byline), but also a lot of mutual respect.
Parton said, “Well, I learned that he’s better than me. And I was hoping he would be. Honestly, he ‘s so smart. He’ s so cool. He listens very well. And he accepts.
“I know who the boss is!” he laughed.
Parton gave Patterson an autographed guitar for his birthday. He says he never learned to play it, preferring instead to let his co-writer sing to us like only a Nashville legend could:
From “Woman Up (And Take It Like a Man)”:
It’s easy, no, it’s not,
I can fix it, no, I can not.
But I will definitely not take it lying down…
I will get up as a woman and take it as a man.
I will fasten, you will be hard enough,
but take control and make demands.
Show like a woman, think like a man,
be as good as or better than,
A woman will get up and take it as a man
READ AN EXCERPT: Dolly Parton & James Patterson “Run, Rose, Run”
For more information:
- “Run, Rose, Run” by Dolly Parton and James Patterson (Little, Brown), hardcover and eBook, available March 7 through Amazon and Indiebound. Also available in audio format, read by Dolly Parton, Kelsea Ballerini, James Fouhey, Kevin T. Collins, Peter Ganim, Luis Moreno, Soneela Nankani, Ronald Peet, Robert Petkoff, Ella Turenne and Emily Woo Zeller
- Album: “Run, Rose, Run” by Dolly Parton (Butterfly), available through Amazon
- dollyparton.com
- Dolly Parton’s Fantasy Library
- jamespatterson.com
- The Bluebird Café, Nashville
Production history of Reid Orvedahl. Editing: Steven Tyler.
- In:
- James Patterson
- Nashville
Add Comment