Pilgrimage to Dollywood: A Country Music Roadtrip Through Tennessee

Pilgrimage to Dollywood says as much about the U.S. and American culture as it does about Dolly Parton. Helen Morales is a transplanted Brit, having recently accepted a teaching position in the U.S., which allows her to make a long-dreamed of pilgrimage to the home of Dolly Parton, whom she has rather idolized for years. 

To make the trip more palatable to her husband and 9-year-old daughter, she plans an itinerary that begins at Graceland, in Memphis, and winds east through Nashville before reaching Dollywood in Pigeon Forge. Half the fun of this book is that these are all places that I have visited and so could easily picture the lobby of the Peabody Hotel, for example, of the giant statue of Athena in Nashville’s replica Parthenon. Which is to say nothing of the Pigeon Forge-Gatlinburg corridor, where my extended family once gathered for a reunion many years ago and which, even then, consisted of mini golf and salt water taffy shops galore.

This is a book about Americans being American, about the South still fighting the Civil War, and about how it all appears when viewed from any outsider’s perspective. For that reason, it should be required reading for anyone seeking to broaden their sense of this country and our, yes, unique and large culture, particularly those aspects of it that are a little more “red state” than blue.