I wish I liked country...

I really wish I liked country. If I liked country music, I would think that Jennings creates a literary masterpiece embodying the essence of the country genre of music. I would revel in his fluid style of writing, absorbing and wholly appreciating the lyrical quality to his prose that is saturated with alliteration, consonance and the pervasive feeling that the memoir belongs to the genre of country music itself. I would recognize and admire his cleverly-placed references to famous country pieces and musicians, my heart would squeeze faithfully every time I saw the word "Cash," and I would be able to pretend that I myself had grown up in the 1960's running and singing barenaked as a child and chasing dogs away from chicken coops.

Sadly, though -- I don't.

I think I get it. Jennings' memoir is a song in its own right: a compilation of hundreds of references to songs and musicians that can only exhibit a unique sound as a single entity if the smaller bits resonate individually. I feel that in order to truly appreciate the novel, the reader would have to inwardly sound the majority of Jennings' references to the country music of forty years ago so that his memoir could resonate as a whole. I really do wish I was familiar with the hundreds of song references that Jennings draws from to compose his novel, but because I'm not, I can't ever truly appreciate Jennings' memoir for the masterpiece that it probably is.