PRAISE FOR COMPOSED
“Rock-solid, heart-wise, [COMPOSED is] one of the best accounts of an American life you’ll likely ever read… This is a self-help book in both senses of that phrase. It’s about helping yourself learn how to heal and to grow—but it’s also about helping yourself to another serving of music. It’s about stepping up to the battered old table across which are spread the gorgeous melodies and poignant lyrics of the songs our fathers and mothers sang, and finding a slotted spoon and digging in.”
—Chicago Tribune
“The moving chapters about Roseanne Cash’s glorious career — and the moments of great tenderness and tension with her legendary family — are like exquisite album tracks: Individually they are great reads, but together they add up to something cohesive and powerful… Rare is the celebrity memoir that is so full of self-awareness and dignity.” Grade: A
—Entertainment Weekly
“Enormously eloquent and affecting… The author is honest, vulnerable, and moving—like a great Rosanne Cash composition.”
—The Daily Beast
“Wry, inviting.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Beautifully written meditations on love, death, family and redemption from the celebrated songwriter… Intimate vignettes writ small fill this account, which illuminates her close, complicated relationships with both her mother and her father… Unflinchingly honest and incisive… Warmth and humor characterize the resilience of the author’s spirit. An excellent memoir that ends on an encouraging note: ‘More to come.’”
—Kirkus (Starred Review)
“This work is a rare treat… Cash’s memoir sheds clear light on her talent and drive.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“[An] engaging memoir… Compelling… Moving.”
—Booklist
“Cash’s exquisite songwriting talent serves her well as an author… The musician’s meditations on the powerful moments that shape a life… border on the poetic.”
—Country Living
“Trust me, you’re going to dig this: COMPOSED is a wise and winning chronicle of the making of an artist.”
—Colson Whitehead, author of Sag Harbor
“Rosanne Cash’s memoir COMPOSED is a classic folk song, full of real heartbreak after real heartbreak, deep love and desperate loss, and the courageous struggle to make sense of the human experience through the beauty and truth of Creative Art.”
—Kris Kristofferson
“This is an extraordinarily and dauntingly honest book.”
—Elvis Costello
“Book clubs everywhere, here’s your next selection! Rosanne Cash has written a lush and glorious memoir that is wise and knowing, humorous and full of hope. The scenes from her life play through like a song, with operatic twists and quiet turns that inevitably lead her home. COMPOSED is powerful and whole and completely unforgettable.”
—Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of the Big Stone Gap series
“An eloquent testimony to the power of song, love, and human resilience. Rosanne writes about life with insight, elegance, and an artist’s open heart.”
—Daniel J. Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music
“Rosanne Cash is a gifted writer who has led an extraordinary life—but what stays with you from this beautiful book is how she makes the particular universal. She makes us feel the contradictory emotions of being someone’s child, someone’s lover, and someone’s parent. She reminds us of the ecstasy of falling in love and the heartbreak of bad endings. She shares the hardest lessons—facing mortality in our loved ones and in ourselves—as eloquently as she makes us appreciate the thousand small joys in this passing world. COMPOSED is more than the story of her life. It’s the story of all our lives.”
—Bill Flanagan, author of Evening’s Empire
“COMPOSED carries the perfect title. With her cool, crisp prose, Cash never makes a drama out of a crisis. This is no surprise to fans of her nonfiction writing and I envy anyone making the discovery. For lovers of music and literature alike.”
—Wesley Stace, author of By George and Misfortune
