I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny

A Desperately Bitter Ex Wife Plays the Blame Game

The title doesn't mean I don't have sympathy for Vivian. I do. Johnny Cash did not treat her right at all, especially after making so many promises in these stupid letters that he would love her forever. I wouldn't have kept them all if that had been me, it just seems like needless self torture with what was. What I don't have sympathy for is her idiotic attempts to try and blame June Carter as some kind of devilish mastermind, blaming drugs, blaming the music industry, blaming bad friends, and self-righteously pining that she and Johnny were destined to be married forever...
Vivian Liberto is a very strange woman. I don't think I've ever read of a more willingly deceived woman in my entire life. My compassion for the tragedies in her life does not require me to endorse any of her ridiculous attitudes.
In the first place, this is no fairy tale romance between her and Johnny Cash! They only had about three or four dates before he shipped out to Germany. And then he proposed marriage before he left, how much did they really know each other in just two or three dates?? I am of the opinion these two never should have gotten married, he had red flags all over his letters. Red flags of drinking too much, of scolding her she better not be dating other men, of sleeping with other women when he was lonely! Clearly her mother was pathetic if she didn't tell her daughter to run the other way after getting these letters.
Well so they got married. And no surprise he becomes famous very quickly because of his talents. Poor Vivian thinks that this will all just be a local job, he'll just tour the surrounding States and be gone a few weeks once in awhile. Vivian does not like to analyze herself or her life, probably because if she did the little fairy tale she built would Fall apart.
There is a dizzying, confusing whirlwind throughout the storytelling of who is to blame for her life not turning out the way she wanted. Throughout her storytelling, Vivian sees Johnny as just her adorable husband. So much an innocent baby that he has no control over chosing drugs, no control in going down on June over and over.
And not only did she not respect Cash, he didn't respect her. They both treated each other like children. This was not a great and loving marriage that Vivian says it is. But then, I'm not sure Vivian understood what a real loving marriage between two equal partners looked like.
In the epilogue, she insists things could have been turned around in the marriage if she had sought help for Johnny's drug use, if she had learned all she could about drug use, if she had "been relentless" in saving it. I think it's a mercy she wasn't relentles because-- short of killing June or locking Johnny up--nothing was going to stop them from being together.
I don't think a realistic, strong woman is going to find much to relate to in this book. Vivian was under a lot of delusions, delusions that I hope were taken away in death. Hopefully now she is in perfect peace, and understands some things that happened in her life were inevitable.

Disheartening and pointless

As a piece of literature, this book was pretty terrible. More than half the book is just Johnny's Love letters to Vivian when they were teenagers, and I'm sure he loved her when he wrote them. But I felt very awkward reading about a dozen, they're repetitive and in some cases way too personal for someone else to read. I don't think Cash would be happy to know she published them.
When the book switches to Vivian's prose, it doesn't get much better as a book because Vivian cannot accept any idea that she and Johnny took different paths in life. She wants to blame the music industry, drugs and then June Carter for destroying a perfect marriage in her mind. No doubt drugs and June Carter played a part, but I think Johnny's priorities changed, he matured. He wanted different things in life after a while. And I think after a while it was difficult for him to make a marriage work with a woman who hated the celebrity attention, and a wife who wanted him at home a lot with her and he wanted to hang out with his music friends and tour. Maybe these two just made a mistake getting married. From the story I hear it doesn't sound like Cash was really ready to be a serious father.
She really tries to paint June as the husband stealing deadly equation that destroyed the marriage but I think Vivian just couldn't handle the idea that Johnny got tired of her. She also couldn't handle the idea that Johnny could love another woman sincerely. She doesn't want him to love June, to the end she claims that June had some kind of devilish hold over him. That is not a healthy mindset.
Where are the truth is in all this there is no telling. I can't even begin to decipher what is truth and lies because Vivian can't seem to see any semblance of reality. She lives in a fairy tale.
I hope she found God's peace when she passed away, but her book was a disappointment. The only thing I learned was that Johnny probably was glad she finally filed for divorce and let them both escape.

All of Cash's letters sound the same ("I miss you so much...I can't wait for us to be married"). Would have been nice to also get to read Vivian's letters. The book glazes over life after they were married (there's no big payoff for suffering through the endless love letters).