Love Can Build A Bridge

Love Can Build A Bridge
Naomi Judd with Bud Schaetzle

This is the story of the rise and forced decline of Country Music's most successful and best-loved duo of the 1980s: Naomi and Wynonna, The Judds. It charts through Naomi's eyes, their beginnings as Diana Judd Ciminella and Christine Ciminella of Ashland, Kentucky. The book also includes the occasional paragraph including the name of Ashley, the unsung Judd, and current Judd movie star celebrity au jour.
   I think it is my duty to mention that the first thing you will need to sacrifice in order to enjoy this book is any desire for the truth. Several years after its 1993 publication, it became public knowledge that Wynonna was not the child of Michael Ciminella, an idea the book, without ever including a sentence, 'She was Michael's baby,' more than supports, without ever touching on any other parental possibilities.
   Ultimately, the story is told through Naomi's dreamy, and often cliched fairy tale imaiginings. And even though it is obvious her version is somewhat engineered, as were the Judds (despite their claim to Kentucky, they spent many years in California, and numerous other PR machine stretches), her character often comes off as controlling, deluded, sensationalistic, and near the end, a saintly martyr.
   My reccomendation is: if you loved the Judds as I do, don't read this book, it will only disappoint. If you disliked the Judds, and Country Music already, stay away. Indulgent "biographies" like this will only give you fodder for futher disapproval.

546 pp.

Reviewed by Alicia Bennett

STORY	* *
IDIOM
IDEAS	1/2
COVER	* * * *

     "I looked over and saw Ashley, Larry, and Mom on my right,
Ken on my left, and the fans before us. It seemed as if the
stage were being levitated.
     As we stood hand in hand, beginning our last song together,
I knew this was the bottom of the ninth in the World Series
with the bases loaded and Wynonna up to bat. As I joined my
dearest companion in harmony for the last time , it was like
lucid dreaming. I felt like a dragonfly, suspended in air, with
gossamer wings beating very, very fast. As Wynonna hit the
impossibly high notes with a church soloist lung power, she
looked like a Pre-Raphaelite painting. She was so beautiful
with her chin tilted upward in soft golden light beaming down
like a ray from heaven. Tears, sparkling like diamonds, cascaded
down her cheeks. It was a supernatural, sacred moment and nothing
will ever outshine its brilliance."

[For fun: count similies and methaphors used in above excerpt]
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