Getting a new computer is daunting but my old reliable XP was no longer supported. So for months during the pandemic I could not blog. But being my husband’s caregiver has left me little time for writing anyway.
This
is my first effort at posting a blog using my new computer. Rather than talk
about my current novels and short fiction, I decided to post a review of a book
my older son gave me for Mother’s Day. He chose it especially for me and it
therefore has real meaning.
Review for A Heartbeat and a Guitar Johnny Cash and
the Making of Bitter Tears: by Antonino D’Ambrosio
This well-researched book follows the little-known
making of an album that shows sympathy and connection with the plight of Native
Americans or as they prefer to be called: Native people. Cash did several free
concerts on reservations for them after his famous Folsom Prison concert. His
sympathy and concern were genuine.
Those of us who have had the honor of seeing Johnny
Cash, June Carter, and their children in concert know what an amazing
experience it was. I personally will never forget the performance I saw in
Atlantic City not long before his passing.
The author ends his book with a touching quote. He
evokes Anatole France’s eulogy of novelist Emile Zola in comparison to Johnny
Cash:
“Let us envy him: he has honored his country and the
world with an immense body of work and a noble act…”
