Discussion:
Chely Wright's autobiography, she says, 'Dear God, please don't let me be gay!'
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Brenda Porterfield
2010-05-05 05:27:34 UTC
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http://www.amazon.com/Like-Me-Confessions-Heartland-Country/dp/0307378861/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273037004&sr=1-1

Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer [Hardcover]
Chely Wright (Author)
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Chely Wright, singer, songwriter, country music star, writes in this
moving, telling memoir about her life and her career; about growing up
in America’s heartland, the youngest of three children; about barely
remembering a time when she didn’t know she was different.

She writes about her parents, putting down roots in their twenties in
the farming town of Wellsville, Kansas, Old Glory flying atop the
poles on the town’s manicured lawns, and being raised to believe that
hard work, honesty, and determination would take her far.

She writes of making up her mind at a young age to become a country
music star, knowing then that her feelings and crushes on girls were
“sinful” and hoping and praying that she would somehow be “fixed.”
(“Dear God, please don’t let me be gay. I promise not to lie. I
promise not to steal. I promise to always believe in you . . . Please
take it away.”)

We see her, high school homecoming queen, heading out on her own at
seventeen and landing a job as a featured vocalist on the Ozark
Jubilee (the show that started Brenda Lee, Red Foley, and Porter
Wagoner), being cast in Country Music U.S.A., doing four live shows a
day, and—after only a few months in Nashville—her dream coming true,
performing on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry . . .

She describes writing and singing her own songs for producers who’d
discovered and recorded the likes of Reba McEntire, Shania Twain, and
Toby Keith, who heard in her music something special and signed her to
a record contract, releasing her first album and sending her out on
the road on her first bus tour . . . She writes of sacrificing all for
a shot at success that would come a couple of years later with her
first hit single, “Shut Up And Drive” . . . her songs (from her fourth
album, Single White Female) climbing the Billboard chart for
twenty-nine weeks, hitting the #1 spot . . .

She writes about the friends she made along the way—Vince Gill, Brad
Paisley, and others—writing songs, recording and touring together,
some of the friendships developing into romantic attachments that did
not end happily . . . Keeping the truth of who she was clutched deep
inside, trying to ignore it in a world she longed to be a part of—and
now was—a world in which country music stars had never been, could not
be, openly gay . . .

She writes of the very real prospect of losing everything she’d worked
so hard to create . . . doing her best to have a real life—her best
not good enough . . .

And in the face of everything she did to keep herself afloat, she
writes about how the vortex of success and hiding who she was took its
toll: her life, a tangled mess she didn’t see coming, didn’t want to;
and, finally, finding the guts to untangle herself from the image of
the country music star she’d become, an image steeped in long-standing
ideals and notions about who—and what—a country artist is, and what
their fans expect them to be . . .

I am a songwriter,” she writes. “I am a singer of my songs—and I have
a story to tell. As I’ve traveled this path that has delivered me to
where I am today, my monument of thanks, paying honor to God, remains.
I will do all I can with what I have been given . . .”

Like Me is fearless, inspiring, true.

About the Author
CHELY WRIGHT is an acclaimed singer and songwriter. Her seven albums
have sold a million copies. Wright has given concerts around the world
and has performed seven times for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She lives in Nashville and New York City.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Pantheon; 1 edition (May 4, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307378861
ISBN-13: 978-0307378866
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
*US*
2010-05-05 06:43:21 UTC
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Her choice to be queer.
Jim Sumner
2010-05-05 11:41:29 UTC
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Post by *US*
Her choice to be queer.
I don't believe a pretty woman like that sat down one day and
decided that she'd rather be gay.
John Fartlington Snodnagel
2010-05-06 22:51:58 UTC
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Considering that a recent AllPoints poll revealed that not one in 200
people queried could identify this "person" Chely, she's wise to have
hired a ghostwriter to work up a piece of fiction to keep her from
losing her house to foreclosure.

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