The Book: Cash: The Autobiography of Johnny Cash, by Johnny Cash

The Story: This is the story of Johnny Cash told by the man himself.  While it isn’t exactly set up chronologically, he still includes stories from his childhood right up through 1997 when this book was originally published.

In this book, Johnny Cash tells the truth behind playing with Elvis, how Blue Suede Shoes came to be, his boyhood, his first marriage and then his later one to June Carter, and the robbery of his house while his whole family was present.  He talks about his friendships with a lot of famous people: Willie Nelson, Roy Orbison, Merle Haggard, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Graham, and seriously about a dozen others.  There were so many “cameos” in this book I cannot even count.

Johnny Cash just used this book to talk honestly about his life’s ups and downs and how he feels about them as an older man, looking back.

What I Thought: Johnny Cash was a staple at my house while I was growing up.  My mom is one of those people that always has music playing, and ol’ Johnny Cash has always been one of her favorites.  I’ve been a fan my whole life.  When he got popular again right before his death, I was thrilled.  I also loved the movie Walk the Line.  So I went into this book really excited to hear the stories told by Johnny Cash himself.

I really loved that he didn’t just write this boring, dry play-by-play of what happened in his life.  I loved the reflective tone that he took and just his view on things after getting cleaned up and putting years between himself and that younger, rebellious guy he used to be.  If nothing else in the book impressed me (and it did), I was blown away by his truthful tone and how he just got to the heart of so many big issues.

I was also kind of in love with how “down home” Johnny Cash remained through the whole of his life.  Being a big star, he could have totally gone off the reservation.  He still loved fishing, knew the nitty gritty of picking cotton, and all these other earthy, real things.  This touched me.

The end of the book wasn’t as engrossing, for me, as the beginning.  The last few chapters get into his “thanks” to all these people that have had a real effect on his life.  I’m sure that this was a great mediation for him while writing it and means a lot to the people who were listed, but for me (who, sadly, wasn’t listed), I found myself just kinda looking over some of these shout-outs.  This was the only part of the story that fell flat for me.

Conclusion: I was in a book rut when I started this one and it broke it entirely.  Really good stuff.