Johnny Cash (1932–2003)

A constrained and slightly pedantic novel, Man in White's only real point of note is that it was written by the Man in Black himself, Johnny Cash. The writer of 'Ring of Fire' and 'I Walk the Line' was a compelling man, as his autobiography, Cash, shows. That book also showed he was quite capable of manipulating prose for effect. Unfortunately, Cash's only novel is about as essential as his straight-up gospel albums. That is, not at all.

Man in White tells the Biblical story of Saul (later show more Paul), a persecutor of the early Christians, who on the road to Damascus witnesses a divine revelation of the martyred Jesus (the titular 'man in white') and becomes a repentant convert. It is an interesting story, but alas Cash is not the man to tell it. His attempts at storytelling are more than a tad clunky, his prose is dry and his dialogue leaden. (However, his research of the time period, and of theology, is good.) Oftentimes, the characters speak solely in the unnatural language of the evangelical, and it felt at times like I had been tricked into reading an extended sermon.

I must admit to being surprised that the book was not as wearisome as I had feared. I was distrustful of the sermonising and the fetishization of the Word, but Cash's brand of Christianity is honest and seeking, rather than the self-satisfied, complacent gospel that seems to permeate through the Christian diaspora in the West. Once I accepted Cash's fidelity, it was much easier to self-edit the denser parts of his book.

Unfortunately, novel-writing is just not Cash's medium. His feel for it isn't as natural as his songwriting. For all its earnestness and energy, his depiction of the conversion on the road to Damascus will not convince anyone who is not already convinced. An ordinary, non-evangelical reader needs an anchor, a hook on which to suspend their disbelief, and in Man in White the character arc just isn't there. show less

The poems collected in Forever Words are gems by Johnny Cash. Not particularly because they are good poems per se but because they allow the fan into the mind of Cash. I honestly view these poems as lyrical sketches as the poems felt song like in the way they use rhyme and rhythm so deftly. If viewed as lyrics, these song-poems are successful. Mostly about love, and a few dealing with history, perhaps the most poignant song poem in this collection is I Heard on the News, which deals with the show more Vietnam War. Additionally, I Wish You a Merry Christmas is quite a hoot:

I Wish You a Merry Christmas

I send you best wishes too

For a long migraine headache

A hysterectomy on Christmas Eve

And a bathroom full of snakes show less

Blossom offers a profound portrait of adolescence, capturing a young boy’s struggle to rebuild his identity in the wake of illness, loss, and the demands of growing up. The story follows Duncan Pepper, a gifted teenage actor playing Hamlet, whose path is interrupted by an impossible decision.

Blossom’s choice to mirror Duncan’s arc with Shakespeare’s Hamlet is more than structural. Like the prince of Denmark, Duncan grapples with grief, legacy, and the pressure to choose how, and show more whether, to act. His most powerful moment comes not in a staged scene but in a callback improv exercise, where he channels his pain into spontaneous, surreal dialogue. It’s an extraordinary passage, rich with rhythm and symbolism, and it reveals what the book suggests all along: performance, when honest, becomes its own kind of truth.

Alongside Duncan’s inner life, the novel captures the emotional steadiness of his relationships with Beck, a tech-savvy classmate with a sharp tongue and a generous heart; and Gale, the unconventional, bell-bottom-wearing drama teacher who becomes both director and guide. Beck, in particular, is a standout character: funny, grounded, and refreshingly free from cliché. Her friendship with Duncan evolves gradually into something deeper, and their dynamic is rendered with the tenderness of two people still figuring themselves out. Set largely in school hallways, locker rooms, and theater spaces, the novel also tackles the subtle violence of masculinity. Blossom is unsparing in his depiction of how the adolescent male body becomes a battlefield. Duncan’s size, his “delayed” puberty, and his emotional self-possession make him an object of suspicion and ridicule. But instead of collapsing under this pressure, Duncan studies it. He resists not by fighting back, but by refusing to be defined by others’ ideas of what a boy should be.

The writing is understated and clean. Blossom favors clarity over flourish, and his strength lies in the interiority he builds for Duncan. His voice is sharp, often humorous, and occasionally heartbreaking, with dialogue that captures the awkward eloquence of adolescence. Structurally, the book resists melodrama. There are no easy redemptions and no sudden fixes; just a gradual process of Duncan learning to carry himself through the world with more intention, more confidence, and more love. By the final pages, the novel makes its argument quietly but clearly: becoming yourself is not a single moment but a lifelong performance. And sometimes, the hardest act is simply choosing to continue. Lovers of “A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky will find much to admire here. Sensitive, smart, and deeply felt. show less

Johnny Cash has always been a ghostly figure on the periphery of my life. I grew up in a Christian home filled largely with the sounds of Christian music. Except when Dad and I would take a trip down to Grandpa's farm; without any big announcement, Dad would tune the radio to the AM country station (KRVN out of Lexington, NE), and for the next hour and a half, we'd listen to Johnny Cash, George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, etc. So I've always associated country music with "going show more home"; to this day (and much to my wife's puzzlement), I will turn on country music when I drive home to Nebraska.

But you can't grow up in a place like Nebraska and NOT encounter country music. And, if you've had even the tiniest exposure to country music, you know Johnny Cash. Cash and the music he represents has always intrigued me, especially in how it whipsaws from murderer's laments ("Folsom Prison Blues") to warnings about the Second Coming of Christ ("When the Man Comes Around"). Equal parts religious and bawdy, I think that Rodney Clapp was right to use Johnny Cash as the icon of what he called the "Great American Contradiction." Cash's songs have always struck me as authentically "human"--deeply flawed but somehow still hopeful. Cash's cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" is mind-blowing to me: Cash's voice is still strong but quavers, and it lifts the song from being a drug addict's lament to being a stunning reflection on human frailty.

I came across this collection of poems and songs, gathered by his son John Carter Cash, in an airport bookstore after a particularly grueling trip. I guess subconsiously, I needed to "get home" in more ways than one. The poems in here, arranged in no apparent particular order, span the entirety of Cash's life. Some were written in the 1940s; others were written in the late 1990s; many are undated.

Each piece often sounds less like a polished poem and more like a "song in progress" (which is probably the reason these pieces were never published), but you can still hear Cash's "voice" in them, that "outlaw cowboy" perspective that is equally rooted in an unshakable faith in God and in the frailty of sinful humanity. There are poems about love, violence, drugs, the Atonement, the biblical character Job (one of my favorites), and the natural beauty of the place called "home." To me, what unites the collection is the sense of longing...for restored relationships, for freedom from addiction, for a return to a lost and beautiful yesterday. There's something about Cash's lyrics that makes me go, "You know, he's right about that..." There's an edge of beauty even when he's confronting the ugliest truths about who we truly are.

For me, the poem that captures the essence of the book and of Cash's art is one from the 1970s (Vietnam-era) entitled, "The Walking Wounded." It opens:
We're in the church-house kneeling down
We're in the subways underground
We're in the bars and on the streets
We drive a truck, we walk a beat
We're in the mills and factories
We make the steel, we cut the trees,
A thousand-yard stare, eyes of glass
We will see you when you pass
We are the walking wounded

We lost our homes, we lost our dreams
All our goals turned into schemes
We hurt each other and ourselves
We went through long, traumatic spells
We cried out from the deepest pit
But rise back up each time we're hit
We fell from power and from grace
But resurrection's in our face
We are the walking wounded

That second-to-last line just slapped me in the face. The near-defiance of a hope that simply will not die...that's why Cash's music lives on. And that's why, even though my young mind couldn't articulate it, I felt so deeply captivated by Cash's rumbling baritone in those long-ago car trips: I was hearing woven into those words the same deep faith carried by the hymns and choruses we played at home...in a different register, yes...in a minor key, true...but there none the less. show less