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Published: July 14, 2023, 12:04 p.m.

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Stephanie Clifford is an investigative journalist and a bestselling novelist. As a\\xa0New York Times\\xa0reporter for almost a decade, she covered courts, business and media. She now writes long-form investigations about criminal justice and business for the\\xa0Times, the\\xa0New Yorker, The Atlantic,\\xa0Wired,\\xa0Elle, Bloomberg Businessweek\\xa0and other publications. Her accolades include the Loeb Award in investigative reporting; the Deborah Howell Award for Writing\\nShe grew up in Seattle and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

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Country-western star Lillian Waters\\nhas lived large: performing in front of packed houses with a chaser of hard\\npartying.\\xa0 She came of age with the big\\nnames\\u2014Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette\\u2014but by 1980, they are still\\ncharting and her career is on shaky ground.

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Out of the public eye for five years,\\nLillian\\u2019s now on a farewell tour, playing honky-tonk bars, backed up by a\\nragged band comprised of some of her oldest bandmates and some new additions,\\nwith no time for rehearsal.\\xa0 She\\u2019s also\\ntraveling with her secrets, like nursing a diagnosis of cancer that will\\nsilence her eventually.\\xa0 Tired of running\\nfrom her real history\\u2014some of which she rewrote to fit country music stardom,\\nsome too deeply buried for her to remember\\u2014she\\u2019s planned her final performance\\nto be in a far corner of Washington state, the place where she was born.\\xa0 It\\u2019s time to go home and face her sister Hen,\\nthe pain of a terrible betrayal, and the impoverished farm no one knows she\\ncame from and left, alone, at age 10.

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THE FAREWELL TOUR (Harper;\\nOn Sale: March 7, 2023; Hardcover) by Stephanie Clifford is a\\nfull-throated ballad. It encapsulates two stories: an intimate portrait of the\\nindomitable Lillian and a panoramic of our culture\\u2014from the West\\u2019s\\nnear-mythical histories of explorers, loggers, trappers, farmers laid out in\\ntextbooks and county fair\\u2019s Pioneer Days, to the negative spaces where the\\nstories of women are left out.

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Clifford, a reporter for almost a\\ndecade at The New York Times, brings her reporter\\u2019s skills to conjure\\nthe rich and complex story of Lillian Waters, aka Lena Thorsell, the second\\ndaughter of two defeated immigrants struggling in a country that promised so\\nmuch.\\xa0 She deftly moves between the eras\\nthat defined her tart-tongued heroine\\u2019s life: the Depression and the Second\\nWorld War; her budding career and the rise of Nashville\\u2019s male-dominated\\ncountry music business scene; and the humiliation of aging out in the late\\n70s.\\xa0 There are hard choices for Lillian\\nevery step of the way:\\xa0 of her music, her\\nheart, her soul. Clifford weaves a mesmerizing portrait of one woman\\u2019s\\ncreativity, ambition and sacrifices in a business made for men.\\xa0

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As the tour brings Lillian finally\\nhome, she is forced to reckon with a tragedy she was not prepared to remember.\\nClifford asks if we can ever be free of our true history:\\xa0 she makes us love her heroine for what she\\nchooses to do with hers\\u2014an anthem, a chorus, for the West\\u2019s forgotten women.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie\\nClifford\\nis an investigative journalist and a bestselling novelist. As a\\xa0New\\nYork Times\\xa0reporter for almost a decade, she covered courts, business\\nand media. She now writes long-form investigations about criminal justice and\\nbusiness for the\\xa0Times, the\\xa0New Yorker, The Atlantic,\\xa0Wired,\\xa0Elle,\\nBloomberg Businessweek\\xa0and other publications. Her accolades include\\nthe Loeb Award in investigative reporting; the Deborah Howell Award for Writing\\nExcellence from the News Leaders Association; the Society of American Business\\nEditors and Writers in explanatory reporting; the Deadline Club Award in\\nmagazine profiles; and others.\\xa0Everybody Rise, her first book, was\\na\\xa0New York Times\\xa0bestseller and\\xa0New York Times Book\\nReview\\xa0Editors\\u2019 Choice. She grew up in Seattle and lives in Brooklyn\\nwith her family.

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Twitter:\\nhttps://twitter.com/stephcliff
\\nInstagram:\\nhttps://www.instagram.com/cliffordwrites/

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\\n\\n--- \\n\\nSupport this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/steve-richards/support'