After finishing a book like this, one must face his own darn curiosity. Curiosity that leads us to any celebrity biography in the first place. There is this dilemma - any book that is too fawning, we dismiss as irrelevant. On the other hand, if the details are too seedy, we would rather not really know it. The truth is, every life could be described either way, it just depends on a point of view. It might come as surprise, but in the right hands your own life could turn into sordid bestseller full to the brim with testimonies from every schoolmate who remembers you in unflattering light. In such literary reinterpretations, shock value might be bigger if the subject was really careful about outside appearance and propriety - if we find that someone as Willie Nelson (for example) smokes joints, its not a big deal but if elegantly poised Tammy Wynette got stoned on Marihuana (and enjoyed herself very much, playing Hank Williams and dancing around the living room) now we are talking. This is why we read celebrity biographies, even if afterwards we wish we didn't. Sometimes some things are impossible to get out of our heads.
Wynette, of course is a perfect subject for biography - not only because of her important role in a music or even as a public figure, but because there is always some mystery about her - McDonough might have interviewed every single person who ever met her and still the impression is one where the people he talked with are alive while Wynette, like some vague dream, is elusive. Some might object that author was too starry-eyed (he even includes his letters to Tammy) but it was this life-long passion about the subject that drove him to write the book and after all, the lady didn't have such meticulously researched biography so far. Nitpick all you want but there was no one else taking this so seriously, McDonough did some serious research and has talked to hundreds of people - including the childhood friends, musicians, colleagues and the surviving husbands, except the last one, George Richey (and between the lines you can feel author's frustration because of it). If there is a fault, it is in the way McDonough feels the need to explain and portrait each and every one of them, so in order to explain their background he might occasionally appear long-winded, it comes to the point where reader expect a chapter for every of Wynette's hairdressers. On a positive note, the book gives you a perfect portrait of 1960s Nashville, the business, the glamour, the trash, the way country music was initially perceived as a embarrassment to some wealthier citizens who thought this reflect badly on town - one of the first reporters who wrote seriously about country music was Jack Hurst, who started writing appreciatively about these artists and like many others, he only has positive things to say about Wynette.
You don't need the book to intuitively understand that Wynette was bruised butterfly - it is there, forever imprinted in every note of music she ever recorded and curiously that voice still has power to stop the listener dead in the track. McDonough lovingly goes about standout songs from her catalogue and explains why they mean so much to him but after all, this is still a highly subjective matter - what he dismiss as inconsequent actually is unforgettable for me personally. What is certain is that Wynette's power, talent and intensity was felt from the start even by jaded studio musicians who intuitively understood this is somebody special. Author also explains how the music business eventually changed and inevitably the old guard came to be replaced not just with new generation but with with different values.
Ultimately the reader must come to his own conclusions who this lady have been - there are funny anecdotes, riveting stories, professional jealousies, hypocrites and exploiters, sycophants and fake friends who simply relished being associated with her fame but wouldn't bat an eyelash towards the end of her life when it became obvious that Wynette was too sick to work. The music and the magic Wynette left behind will always be more important than any of the informations you might find in the book - just be warned, some of it might leave a bitter aftertaste and you might wish that you didn't know it.
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