Composed: A Memoir
By: Rosanne Cash
Penguin Books; Reprint edition (July 26, 2011)
256 pages
Rosanne Cash’s book Composed is a poignant memoir. She explores love and loss and, both the perils and benefits, of growing up in the shadow of a country music legend – her father – Johnny Cash. This is a touching read. Say what you will, but Rosanne Cash is a legend herself. And her story is eloquently beautiful.
Two of my favorite quotes:
I belong to an extended family of musicians whose members sprawl across generations. Some occupy positions of great acclaim (my father and my stepmother’s family, the Carters), some have modest but respectable careers marked by persistence and hard work (my uncle Tommy Cash), while others never made it much further than anecdotal obscurity (my maternal uncle “Wildman” Ray Liberto, a onetime raucous honky-tonk piano player with a handlebar mustache), and some are just embarking (my daughter Chelsea). At sixteen I did not intend to take my place among them.
He grew still and stared straight ahead through the glass doors to the nurse’s station while I talked. When I finished, he turned to me with surprise. “You got me. With that chapter.” He thought for a moment. “I didn’t know you felt all those things then.” Neither of us spoke for a moment or two; then softly I said, “Well, I did.” Dad’s eyes glazed a bit, and he said quietly, “Just to think of you makes my heart swell with pride.”
