A mother misunderstood

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/09/2008 (6259 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the court of popular opinion, Lynne Spears is guilty as charged.

The mother of troubled American pop princesses Britney and Jamie Lynn has been accused, tried and pilloried for being one of the most aggressive stage parents in the history of show business.

How else could her daughters, who’ve done everything from abusing drugs and shaving their heads to bearing out-of-wedlock babies, have melted down so quickly under the harsh light of celebrity?

But Spears is actually a modest God-fearing saint who has been the victim of a vigilante justice, if you listen to the Winnipeg-born co-author of the new Spears memoir Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World.

“I no longer believe, naively, that there must be some grain of truth to stories in the media,” says Lorilee Craker, now a Michigan-based entertainment journalist and Christian-book author.

“I’ve read things about Lynne where 95 per cent of it is made up and really vicious.”

The 211-page opus, published by the Nashville-based Christian publisher Thomas Nelson, arrives in North American bookstores today. It was supposed to come out last May but was held back after Jamie Lynn’s teen pregnancy came to light.

With advance copies already leaked to U.S. news outlets, it is expected to jump into the top 10 of U.S. bestseller lists, while Spears, 53, promotes it on TV talk shows.

“There is not a pushy bone in her body,” insists Craker, 40, who grew up as Lori Reimer, “a nice Mennonite girl,” on Kingsford Avenue in North Kildonan.

“She’s a very humble, very grounded down-to-earth lady.”

Most celebrity bios are penned by anonymous hacks, but Through the Storm has Craker’s name on the cover.

“Ghostwriters get paid way, way more, because they don’t get credit,” she says.

“We wrote it together. Lynne told me stories and I organized it.”

So how did this minivan-driving mother of three, who has lived in Grand Rapids, Mich., for 16 years, get involved with the wacky Spears clan?

“My literary agent knew Jamie Lynn’s business manager,” says Craker, who has published nine wholesome parenting books, most recently A is for Atticus: Baby Names from Great Books.

“They thought I was a good fit because I work for a Christian publisher but also because I’m an entertainment writer, so I know something about celebrity.”

After they struck a deal (Craker refuses to reveal the size of her paycheque), she got together with Spears on five occasions over the past year and a half.

She stayed with Spears both in her Louisiana hometown of Kentwood (“Lynne’s a great cook!”) and in her Los Angeles condo. She met Jamie Lynn but not Britney nor Lynne’s oldest child, Bryan.

“Lynne has a close circle of girlfriends who were her support system during her time of troubles,” Craker says. “She introduced me to all of them, and we got along great.”

As southern Baptists, their knowledge of Prairie Mennonites was slim to none.

“Her best friend asked me if that was like ‘the Midianites from the Bah-ble,'” recalls Craker, affecting a southern drawl. “That cracked me up!”

Britney, now 27, and Jamie Lynn, 17, went off the rails for many reasons, Craker says, not the least of which was living in a media fishbowl.

“People have no idea about this level of fame, almost Elvis-like fame,” Craker says.

“It can do a number on you.”

But if Spears enjoys a quiet life, why would she put out a celebrity memoir?

“She wanted it as a gift for her children and grandchildren,” Craker says, “so they would understand her better someday.”

Craker left Winnipeg, where she was once speed skater Cindy Klassen’s Sunday school teacher, to attend the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

That’s where she met her husband, Doyle, now a computer programmer. The couple has two boys, Jonah, 10, and Ezra, 7, and a girl, Phoebe, 3.

Despite living more than half her life in the U.S., she remains a Canadian citizen whose pacifist Mennonite background puts her at odds with the militaristic views of middle America.

“My Facebook page says I’m pro-life and antiwar,” she says. “A lot of people here have a problem with that.”

In August she drove with her kids to Winnipeg to visit her mother, Linda Reimer. Her father, Abe, the owner of the old Covenant Christian Bookstore on Henderson Highway, died in 2006.

“I brought my (Spears) manuscript for my mother to read,” she says. “Even Oprah couldn’t read it, because there was such an embargo.”

morley.walker@freepress.mb.ca