Review for A Heartbeat and a Guitar Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears: by Antonino D’Ambrosio

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…”