LA VERGNE, Tennessee — Sometimes even Dolly Parton has a hard time keeping up with the legend of Dolly Parton.
“I often go into my museum in Dollywood, you know, because I’m in the mood to be there or we’re in there doing something or putting something new in. And I look at all that stuff and think ‘When, how did that happen?’” she says. “I shake my head when I see, like a documentary or something. I think how did I do all that, how did I get all that done?”
The singer, songwriter, actor and philanthropist is speaking from another wing of her empire, one of two sound stages at a 7,200-square foot studio complex outside of Nashville, with assistants and technicians moving about and Parton herself in a characteristically cheerful mood on an otherwise overcast afternoon. Seated next to her — and wearing a dark tuxedo jacket touched with black and red to match the pattern of her dress — is a novelist as prolific in his field as she is in songwriting, James Patterson.
The collaboration began as just one of countless ideas for Patterson, who reliably turns out several books a year, from children’s stories to a biography of the Kennedys to two best-selling thrillers written with former President Bill Clinton. Patterson spent a lot of time in Nashville in the 1960s while attending Vanderbilt University and thought of an archetypal story — a young, promising and frightened country singer, AnnieLee Keyes, facing a “million to one odds,” and her bond with a retired country superstar, Ruthanna Ryder.
As Patterson and Parton both recall, Patterson contacted Parton’s team and the two soon spoke in Nashville.
“We liked each other right away. And we kind of made the deal right there — no lawyers. We didn’t want anybody in the way,” Patterson says.
