Product Description

The revealing story of one of America's greatest female stars of country music.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #478537 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-01
• Released on: 2001-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Country singer Tammy Wynette died in 1998 after a lifetime of medical problems and an addiction to painkillers. Now Daly, Wynette's second-oldest daughter, has written an account of the singer's troubled life from the perspective of a young woman who helplessly watched her mother fall apart. The memoir begins with the confusing, surreal days following Wynette's death. Daly then backs up, giving voice to the resentment she felt growing up, overlooked by a busy, famous mother who had little time for child rearing. Daly pays scant attention to Wynette's relationship to Nashville's country music establishment and scoots over the singer's rise to fame, choosing instead to focus on the personal problems that plagued Wynette's life and eventually ended it. An over-romantic dependence on men led Wynette to a string of loveless marriages and an increasing lack of control over her career. Recurring abdominal problems, compounded by multiple operations and a demanding performance schedule, left her dependent on feeding tubes and catheters. Most debilitating was her addiction to prescription painkillers (such as the opiate Demerol) that persisted despite several attempts at treatment and intervention. Daly, a loyal daughter, holds her mother's doctor and last husband responsible for not stemming her descent. This book captures the complicated relationship of a daughter to a mother who needed more parenting and guidance than her children did. Unfortunately, the writing is weak, and the tone of desperation that closes the book makes it feel more like a tabloid interview than a memoir. Photos not seen by PW. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Daly decided to write this touching biography while her mother was still alive and, with her mother's blessing, to pick up where Wynette left off in her autobiography, Stand by Your Man (S.&S., 1979. o.p.). To Daly, her mother was a down-to-earth, fun-loving woman who unwound by cooking for her family and friends and shopping with her children. Of course, she had heard stories about various events in Wynette's lifeDa failed stint at the Betty Ford Center, bankruptcyDbut had not witnessed much of it. Her intention was to clarify those events while getting to know her mother better. With her mother's death in 1998 at 55, the focus of Daly's book changed somewhat. Although Wynette was in poor health, her sudden death was still a shock, and its mysterious circumstances compelled Daly to seek the truth and protect her mother's legacy. A wrongful death suit is now pending. Libraries with Wynette's autobiography will want to acquire Daly's book, as fans will be requesting it. Recommended for country music collections and public libraries.
-DKathleen Sparkman, Baylor Univ., Waco, TX
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Tammy Wynette's April 6, 1998, death was a shock. An even greater shock came when her daughters demanded an autopsy in 1999. What did Daly and her siblings hope to discover? Well, the attending physician said she had died of a blood clot in a lung, and how could he have known that without an autopsy? The belated probe showed, according to one of two pathologists present, that prescription drugs had "played a significant role in the cause of her death." Samples of body fluids could have amplified the findings, but the "blood had been drained from her veins and organs" when she was embalmed immediately after death, "carr[ying] with it truths we would never know." Spooky stuff, the kind of thing associated more with the Jerry Lee Lewis than with the Tammy Wynette sector of country-music land. Daly and her sisters feel the whole story of Tammy's demise has not been told, and their suspicions about it center on Tammy's last husband, George Richey. Daly relates what she knows, what she suspects, and how it all fits together. Wynette was an American icon, far more complex than the "Stand By Your Man" image casual fans saw, even though she was tenacious enough to stand by George Jones, the Keith Richards of country music, for six years. There seems to be more real mystery in her death than in a year's worth of tabloid scandals. Daly doesn't have the ultimate solution, but with coauthor Carter's help, she asks haunting questions in this must-have item for active pop-culture collections. Mike Tribby

Customer Reviews

Give Jackie a break.....
After reading all the customer reviews concerning this book(most of them very negative) I decided to purchase this book and form my own opinion. This book is about a daughter who lost her mother in death, a death that obviously came as a surprise to the entire family, including Tammy's husband, George Richey. Understandably, at least to me, her daughter, Jackie, wanted to know exactly what the cause of her mother's death was. Is that so unreasonable? It's my understanding from reading the book that the doctor who diagnosed her cause of death did so over the telephone without ever even examining the body. This was apparently "good enough" for Tammy's husband, but her daughter wanted a more realistic explanation. George Richey refused to help resolve this very troubling situation, having the belief that Tammy's dead and what does it really matter how she died--nothing is going to bring her back. That (understandably) wasn't good enough for Jackie, so she and her sisters had no choice but to sue Mr. Richey in an effort to find the truth as to what the cause of their mother's death really was.

Despite claims by others, I don't view Jackie as a gold digger trying to cash in on the fame of her mother. She has every right to know what happened to her mother and why. If Mr. Richey would have simply cooperated, this book need never have been written. The book is a sad story about a family that has been torn apart by the tragic death of someone they all loved. The fact that Tammy Wynette was a country superstar is the only reason the public is interested in the first place. If this same situation had happened with a non-celeberty family, the same questions would have been asked and the outcome would most likely have been the same. So I say, give Jackie a break. The woman is doing the best she can to try and deal with the death of her beloved mother. Let her grieve in her own way and don't be so judgemental. My heart goes out to her.

It's About Mothers and Daughters !!
In my opinion, many of the reviews posted for "A Daughter Recalls" are unflattering and unfair to the author. I do not believe she is a little golddigger, self-serving or dishonoring her mom. We have to face 3 basic facts: 1) Regardless of the role George Richey (husband # 5) played -or didn't play- in Tammy's untimely death, all should agree that the circumstances of her demise were very strange and beg certain questions. I feel Jackie is merely trying to air these questions publicly. 2) This is not(!) a true biography. Such a definitive story has yet to be written. "A Daughter Recalls" is much more concerned with Tammy's later years and especially with her phsical problems and various addictions/afflictions. And Tammy's own "Stand By Your Man" deals only with her life until 1979 - in a highly "sanitized" fashion. When the ultimate story does appear, I'll stand in line to buy it. 3) Most importantly, I believe " A Daugher Reacalls" is about a girl who loved her mother-but mom was rarely home. She was always on the go. There was little "quality time". To make matters worse, there was the "little matter" of the 5 marriages to men who took advantage (#s 2-4-5) or were drunks (#3). Good old boy Euple Byrd (#1) seems like the best of the bunch. With mom gone all the time, not always in the best of health-AND saddled with 4 inadequate step-fathers- you would expect Jackie and her sisters (She must be the spokesperson) to be devastated by Tammy's death-all the more so because she died under a cloud of suspicion. Strange that I feel the need to defend the author from reviewers but I hope the 4 sisters find some peace and closure in Tammy's death. I must admit the story has one prime flaw: It gave the definite air of a book rushed to print- perhaps before a final editing job. Too bad but not fatal. Classic country fans and certainly Tammy fans can ignore this (and the various carping at the author!) and safely buy. It's not a true biography but it's well worth a hardcover price.

IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT DOWN
Wynette's death will always be shrouded in mystery. She was gone long before she should have been (a lot of it brought on by herself but most of it brought on by her dependence on others who thought they knew best, namely George Richey (the fortune hunter who used Tammy's name for exploitation and furthering his own selfish purposes. And her doctor who kept filling her up with "drugs" until her body shut down because she couldn't take any more!) Jackie Daly takes us through the painful memories of the sad day of her mother's death, shrouded in mystery (WHY DID THEY WAIT SO LONG TO CALL THE CORONERS TO PICK UP THE BODY??? WHY DID THIS PARTICULAR DOCTOR HAVE TO FLY IN FROM WEST VIRGINIA OR PENNSYLVANIA OR NEW JERSEY OR WHEREVER HE WAS FROM TO CONFIRM THE DEATH??? WHY DID GEORGE RICHEY, NOT LONG AFTER TAMMY DIED BEGIN DATING A DALLAS COWBOY CHEERLEADER?) I give props to Tammy's daughters for standing up for the truth. The only people here who gave one star reviews were probably George Richey advocates who knew his agenda long before Tammy's daughters did. And it was clear..he did have an agenda. We certainly did not need this book to tell us that.