Music is so intimate, and the artists making the music can shape our lives in various ways, if we’re lucky. Dolly Parton and her music have been part of poet Lynn Melnick’s life for a long time. In the memoir I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton, Melnick explores the many facets of Parton’s identity and how they intersect and overlap with her own, as well as with larger cultural issues like #metoo, religion, sexism, and violence. It’s a nuanced, thoughtful look at survival, creativity, and how we see public figures.
Melnick was gracious enough to answer some questions via email about her book:
You’ve published three books of poetry, and this is your first work of nonfiction. Was the creative process for this book different from your poetry collections?
Absolutely. With poetry, I tend to write poem-by-poem and then eventually, maybe 30 poems in, I can sense what the collection will be and start writing a bit more intentionally towards that. With my memoir—which is also a heavily researched love song to Dolly Parton—I had mapped out the chapters before I even began writing. Of course, as I wrote, I was often surprised by where the words led me, but the basic format was there from the start. That said, when I set out to revise the book, I knew my chapters weren’t all in their ideal order, and re-ordering the chapters felt very much to me the way ordering a book of poems does. I pay very careful attention to flow and what one chapter or poem is saying to those around it, and I try so many different orders until it is finally right.
It’s so easy for people these days to either put their role models on a pedestal and ignore their (all-too-human) faults, or to do the complete opposite, and tear them down or “cancel” them. In this book, you explore some of Dolly’s flaws and missteps, allowing her to be complex and multifaceted—in other words, human. There are many different themes and topics in the book: sex work, rape culture, intimate partner violence, motherhood, #MeToo, feminism, trauma and healing. How do you see all of these coming together, particularly with Dolly?
Humans are all so imperfect—even the near-perfect ones, like Dolly. Writing this book made me more compassionate, for myself and others. We all misstep, we all hurt others. You don’t live 48 years (me) or 76 years (Dolly) without a whole heap of things you wish you’d handled differently.
To answer your question: the themes you mention are all themes that I’ve written about in my poetry books, and address more frankly in my memoir. To me these themes cohere because they are the themes of my life. But they are also the themes of growing up and existing as a woman in the world, so naturally Dolly’s life and songs address each of these themes too. The more I wrote into the book the more I realized what a beacon she’s been to me through my life.
You mention in the book that you aren’t particularly religious, but to me this still felt like a very Jewish book—in a very good way. Themes of forgiveness, renewal, your grandmother, other cultural touchpoints… was this intentional at all?
Jaime, it makes me so happy to read this because I keep saying it’s a “very Jewish book about Dolly Parton!” I have a piece coming out in Hey Alma about how writing this book brought me closer to my Jewishness—it really did, and that feels like a gift. I certainly didn’t expect that when I started writing it!
Do you have a writing routine? How has it changed over the course of the pandemic?
I guess my writing routine is finding the day or days each week on my calendar to schedule writing. My life as a teacher, editor, mother doesn’t allow me to wait around for the muse to strike. I have to be very unsexy about writing, and I stick to my allotted times each week rather religiously—but they aren’t the same days or times each week. I also take on projects in tiny bits, because otherwise I get overwhelmed. I always tell my editing clients: it all adds up! For example, I had about a year to finish my memoir to turn into my publisher, and I planned to write 3500 words a week, however I could get there on my schedule. In half a year I had a first draft, and then I revised on a similar schedule.
My routine or methods didn’t change over the pandemic, except that I used to write a lot in coffee shops and suddenly, after I signed the contract in early 2020, I was left to write most of my book in a shared space with my younger daughter, who was going to 5th grade over Zoom. It wasn’t ideal (there are 4 of us in a NYC-sized apartment) but, with both of my girls now teenagers, I would never complain about a little extra time with them before they are off into the world. My family had to listen to A LOT of Dolly, but they didn’t complain (usually)…
How do you think the creative community can support those who aren’t cis men, and mothers, especially?
This is a difficult question, because so much in the larger world needs to change for the creative community to be able to change along with it, so we need more paid leave, fairer wages in general, affordable mental and physical healthcare, available and affordable childcare, etc. Without those larger needs in place, a lot of the creative community is left tacking band-aids on the problem. I spent years working with VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, advocating for women and other marginalized writers, and we’d so often come up against a wall with our work because the larger cultural climate often feels immoveable. That said, I also realized through that work that starting small and local really does work. By convincing editors to be more inclusive in their acceptances, it allows for more diverse stories—including the stories of motherhood—and I very much believe we change the world story by story. Similarly, if we all stand up when we see members of our community mistreated or left out, then that all adds up and the needle does move a little.
What are you struggling with, as a parent and as a writer, right now?
As a writer, I’m struggling with not writing! I knew I wouldn’t be writing this fall, and instead channeling that energy into promoting the memoir, but wow do I miss it. I’ll get back to it after the new year, and I can’t wait.
As a parent, I’m struggling with my older daughter being in her senior year of high school. I’m very proud of her and excited for all that will come next, but I’m just so weepy already. I was just rocking her to sleep in her cradle a minute ago, I swear.
What books inspire you, and what are you reading right now?
I just finished Hafizah Augustus Geter’s memoir, The Black Period, and it is phenomenal—beautiful, smart, honest. I got the ARC for Melinda Moustakis’ forthcoming novel, Homestead, and I am super excited to dive in—she writes the most poetic prose.
So many books move me, but I’ll mention one poem in particular: Ada Limón’s “The Raincoat,” which I just taught to my undergraduate poetry class. If I could write a poem as perfect as this, as well structured, as unrushed, as absolutely gutting and heartwarming as this one I would just skip down every street with joy. It is for sure my favorite poem about motherhood.
What’s on the horizon for you?
I don’t know! I’ve never not known what my next project will be when I’m done with a book, so this is uncharted territory, but I’m starting to kick around some ideas, and that’s a start.
Author photo: Ada Donnelly