The heart leaps at the chance to shift attention from epidemics, recession and state-sponsored snitching back to more intimate and familiar dissolutions, including serial adultery, virtuoso drunkenness and unscheduled tooth removal via sucker punch. Country-music legend Loretta Lynn’s Me and Patsy Kickin’ Up Dust is rich in those traditional themes. It’s also a quick and illuminating read.

Loretta gives readers an interesting window into what it was like to be a woman in the country music world during the '50s and '60s. She also offers an intriguing glimpse into her personal life, as she talks about growing up poor, marrying when she was a teenager, and living with a husband who cheated on her. She writes with a true down-home country style that shows no pretense, making it feel like she is sitting in your living room sharing her stories with you.

With an outstanding Foreword by Dolly Parton, Me & Patsy Kickin’ Up Dust delivers enjoyable short chapters jumping in and out of stories from Loretta Lynn’s heart, written in Loretta’s own, unedited, authentic, rural mountain voice. Patsy Cline helped Lynn get started in Nashville’s music scene. She even groomed Lynn, teaching the then-country bumpkin how to dress for the stage. A lovely, quick read for classic country music fans..

Lynn is, above all, a great storyteller, and this book is filled with warm and funny stories, as heartfelt and true as any of her songs. But underneath the folksy veneer is an unvarnished view of what it took for her and Cline to make it to the top. “I love seeing women be good friends to each other,” she says..

Lynn has sold more than 45 million albums worldwide and has earned countless accolades. But as she reveals in this warm memoir, if she hadn’t had the support and friendship of Cline, who died tragically in a plane crash in 1963, her rise to stardom might have been a lot harder to achieve.