Who Wrote Islands In The Stream

Hello, Dolly!

“The last time we talked, honey, I was in the bathtub. Now I’m in my bed. Where do you think this relationship is heading?”

You just know that’s got to be Dolly Parton, one of the few people around who can trash talk and make it sound like poetry.

The country superstar and composer of 9 to 5 , the musical version of the iconic movie, which Dancap Productions is bringing to the Toronto Centre for the Arts on June 29, turned 65 this past January, but she’s insisting “that nasty ol’ number” isn’t going to change the way she lives her life at all.

“People talk to me about retiring. Darlin’, I’m the least retiring person you ever met in your life. I’m not slowin’ down, I’m goin’ faster. The fewer days I got left, the more I gotta do in them.”

A lot of performers indulge in that kind of talk, but Parton practises what she preaches, like any good ol’ girl would. On June 28, she releases her latest album, Better Day , and a few weeks later starts a tour on July 17 that will take her around America, over to England and Europe, then across to Australia before she finally stops for the holiday season, before starting the whole thing up all over again in 2012.

That would be enough to occupy most stars, but Parton also remains intimately connected with the stage version of 9 to 5 as it’s been touring North America after its Broadway opening in 2009.

“That li’l ol’ movie was mighty important to me, so I like to keep an eye on its musical sister as well. Only seems right.”

The 1980 film 9 to 5 was a big deal in the day, not just for its cast of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Parton, or for its message of female equality in the workplace, but also for the catchy title tune that Parton provided for it.

Start to play the distinctive driving rhythm that began the piece and mot people recognize it immediately, which was Parton’s intention.

“I wanted to make it sound like big ol’ feet hittin’ the floor on Monday mornin’. You know how the lyric starts ‘I tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen, grab myself a cup of ambition….’? Well that’s how most of us begin each day, but by the time we get rollin’, which is when we get to the chorus, our blood is pumpin’ and we’re ready to start the battle again.”

That’s all well and good, but that was just one song. What made Parton think she could write an entire Broadway score?

“ISLANDS IN THE STREAM” REVIEWED BY RONALD PAYNE

“ISLANDS IN THE STREAM”

REVIEWED BY RONALD PAYNE

(Originally published October, 1970)

Somehow, it always seems fashionable for a few book critics to take pot shots at any newly published novel written by the late Ernest Hemingway. These critics get a terrific pleasure in ripping apart one of the greatest writers of our time, and making his work seem as of little consequence as if they had first appeared serially in the “Harvard Lampoon.”

However, “Islands in the Stream,” a posthumous work published by the author’s widow, is much finer than a lot of the “Time” and “Newsweek” magazine critics would give it credit for being. The novel is as good as anything else “Papa” ever wrote.

Taken from a large collection of manuscripts Hemingway left behind in Manhattan bank vaults, “Islands in the Stream” is only one of five unpublished books Hemingway left along with 332 other unpublished works, including 21 short stories, poems and newspaper articles.

Often referred to by Hemingway as “my big book,” the novel is divided into three sections, “Bimini,” “Cuba,” and “At Sea.” It revolves around the life and adventures of Thomas Hudson, a painter of international following, who has been on intimate terms with such literary notables as James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and all the renowned members of Hemingway’s own Paris years.

Taking place in the late thirties and mid-forties,Hudson stands out as one of Hemingway’s best creations.Hudson is definitely the “code hero,” who knows that the purpose of life is to endure. He is a man of tremendous appetites and attitudes and knows that all of life is a test of “grace under pressure.”

The “Bimini” section is technically superior to the other two sections of the book and could easily stand as a long story and one of the best things Hemingway wrote since “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” This section deals with the meeting of a writer, Roger Davis, based on the novelist ‘John Dos Passos,’ with Hudson and his three sons, who are visiting him. The sons are the product of a marriage that ended in divorce. As for Davis, a childhood pal of Hudson’s, he is having a hard time with his new book. The “Bimini” section is superior in its account of Hudson’s youngest son landing a large marlin and being threatened by deadly sharks.

Islands in the Stream

A reader's guide to Ernest Hemingway

"Quite a little about painters", art and artists in Hemingway's life and work

Planet Cat, A CAT-alog

Islands in the stream, a novel