Vanderbilt Magazine

Parton and Patterson collaborate on novel and album

Prolific bestselling novelist James Patterson, MA’70, and country music legend Dolly Parton have collaborated on a novel, Run, Rose, Run. The book, scheduled to be published by Little, Brown and Co. on March 7 in print, e-book and audio editions, is about a young singer with a dark secret that inspires her music. Parton will simultaneously release an album on her Butterfly Records label, also titled Run, Rose, Run, featuring 12 new songs inspired by the novel. The songs are “based on the characters and situations in the book,” Parton said in a news release. “The mind-blowing thing about this project,” Patterson added, “is that reading the novel is enhanced by listening to the album and vice versa. It’s a unique experience that I know readers (and listeners) will love.”