Dolly Parton Wrote a ‘Hot and Heavy’ Book She Knew Would ‘Shock’ People
Dolly Parton has published nearly 20 books throughout her career. She greatly values her songwriting practice and has expanded to longer writing projects. She has even produced works of fiction. Parton said that one book she worked on in the 1970s would have shocked people if she had released it.
Dolly Parton wrote a book she knew would shock people
Parton has written hundreds of songs in her career. She’s also tried her hand at children’s books, poetry, and fiction.
“I’ve got trunkfuls of things I’ve written,” she said in 1978, per the book Dolly on Dolly. “I’ve been writin’ poetry since I was in grammar school. When I was a teenager, I wrote a lot of real hot and heavy love stories; I was just so horny myself.”
She admitted that she didn’t cease writing “hot and heavy love stories” as she got older. She was working on one as an adult.
“I’m writin’ a story even now; it’s pretty hot and heavy,” she said. “It’s got a lot of sex and love and violence and religion, all the human elements.”
She said she thought it would “shock a lot of people,” so she didn’t want to release it.
“That’s why I ain’t puttin’ them out today or the day after tomorrow,” she admitted. “When I decide to publish some of my books, I’m goin’ to write in the front that those who think they might be offended, don’t read them. Then, if you are offended, don’t blame me, because now I’m not just a singer but also a writer; and as a writer, I have to have freedom of total expression.”
Parton said she regretted one memoir she wrote
While Parton didn’t release this book, she has published several others over the years. She said she had some regrets about her 1994 memoir Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business.
“How can you write your own story when you ain’t lived it?” she said in 1998. “But it’s there. Just like all this other cheap stuff. I did it for money! Are you happy now?”
She said she didn’t think the memoir was a good way to tell her life story.
“I’ve almost, in many ways, regretted that I wrote this book, to be honest,” she admitted. “I’ve never said that before, but it’s almost like once people know that much about [me], I’d rather tell it and live it and show it, and do it like we do in interviews and have people really hear it come from me.”
Dolly Parton revealed the book that inspired her love of reading
Parton said she has loved reading since childhood. Her mother read her stories from the Bible.
“The Bible was the only book we had in the house each and every day,” Parton wrote in her book Dream More. “I have such fond memories of sitting on Mama’s lap, huddled near the warmth of the fire.”
Her family’s copy of the Bible inspired her love of reading.
“The stories from the Old Testament were wild, vivid stories of good and bad that both scared and excited me,” she said. “It made me want to know more, and most of all, it made me want to read more.”
