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| Vivian Cash "I Walked the Line: My Life With Johnny" |
For whatever reason, a particular book popped in my head that I was curious about. Some years back, Vivian Liberto, better known as Vivian Cash, wrote a book chronicling her marriage to the late Johnny Cash. She had apparently been planning to write this book for some time and even sought Johnny’s blessing to publish it. It was marketed in a way that was a clear rebuttal to the Vivian Cash we saw in Walk the Line, the biographical film produced by Johnny and June Cash’s son, John Carter Cash.
My personal opinion of the film was positive, however, Liberto and her daughter Roseanne Cash weren’t impressed. I don’t think any of us actually know how accurate the film was but we do know that the film makers used every avenue they could to tell the real story of Johnny’s rise to the top of country and rockabilly music, his drug addiction and subsequent fall from grace. It’s the personal relationships that I don’t believe any of us actually know.
It’s why I was interested in reading this book. No matter how amazing Johnny and June’s love was, it didn’t come without casualties.
So I bought an overpriced latte and plopped my butt on a chair to try and get Vivian’s side of the story…To say I was turned off is being polite.
The more I read, the less badly I felt for her. I do not doubt she was a good woman and mother so I’m not going to touch on those areas. But it’s plain to see she never got over Johnny Cash. Ever. You know those memes of the chick that’s the creepy girlfriend?
That’s the vibe I got from her. As you probably know, Johnny was in the Air Force and he spent quite a lot of his time writing to Vivian. I know this because she published what felt to be hundreds of his letters to her. In fact, the letters took up the majority of the book. I made it a point to completely avoid the chapters that involved any personal writings, which was great because I was able to finish the book before I left the store.
As someone who has been with a military man, I can tell you nothing is more personal than letters to home. Nothing. These guys bear their souls. They are alone. They are scared. You gal back home is the only one who ‘gets it’. I was almost embarrassed reading them. I felt like I broke into the house of my idol and read his journal.
But it got worse. Beyond trying to convince the reader that she was Johnny’s love that got away, she turned her sights to June Carter, the gospel country princess of her day and eventual second wife of Johnny Cash. If you believe Walk the Line, you believed June Carter was almost constantly pursued by Cash. But Liberto claims quite the opposite–that Carter was the pursuer, even going as far as telling Liberto, “He will be mine.”
Liberto also made quite the strong assertion that Cash’s drug problems were a direct result of Carter enabling and even purchasing the pills for him and was an addict herself.
Most of these accusations have been backed up by Liberto’s and Cash’s daughters, Roseanne and Cindy, which makes me even sadder that these young girls were exposed to three adults that apparently couldn’t keep their shit together in front of the kids. Regardless of who is right, it’s obvious this had a lasting effect on the children.
She also claimed that the hit Ring of Fire was not written by June Carter, but by Johnny Cash while drunk and he gave her co-writer rights because Carter was broke.
What really makes me tweak over this book though is the timing. The book is an obvious rebuttal to the 2005 movie and it was published after the deaths of both Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. There was no chance of them countering the pages and pages of accusatory claims. Like I said earlier, it’s been stated by Liberto’s party that Cash gave his blessing for the book and even was going to write the forward for it prior to his death but I question how much he knew about the content. I am sure Johnny wanted Vivian to find peace and no one knows more than he does about what he did to her. However, I do not believe for a second it would have been at the expense of his wife and muse.
What little writing actually went into this book just felt like the ire of a woman scorned, desperately trying to besmirch the reputation of the other woman while not placing much blame at all on the real culprit in the triangle–Johnny Cash. I can get into how irresponsible, petty and childish this sort of attitude it but Vivian Liberto does a great job of displaying it on her own. Most people around Liberto in her later years all said she was a lovely woman. I’m sure she was. That by no means acquits her from being outwardly vicious about a skeleton that laid in her closet.
Few artists’ personal lives have been on display and the thing of lore the way Johnny Cash’s was, however, I had hoped this book would have given a deeper reflection on the early years of Johnny Cash. Instead, it is a cutely packaged soapbox designed by the bitter ex-wife of a music legend that left me feeling like I just read a mash-up of US Weekly and 50 Shades of Grey. By the time this book came out, Vivian and Johnny have been divorced for 40 years. Forty years. That’s a grudge of epic proportions.
The music industry is cutthroat, shady and dirtier than a Washington DC dinner party. I don’t believe anyone involved in it is a saint, but I could have done without this psycho ex-girlfriend nonsense.
