Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness
By Reinhard Kleist
Translated by Michael Waaler
Self Made Hero £14.99, 221 pages
FT Bookshop price: £11.99

Unlike dipsomaniac Hank Williams or bloated Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash’s life ended on a satisfyingly redemptive note. The country singer had his troubles too, revolving around drink and amphetamines. But Christian faith and domestic stability with his second wife June Carter Cash saved him. It’s the stuff of myth – the sinner who repents; the wild man tamed by the love of a good woman. And until some warts-and-all biographer comes along to spoil the picture, it will remain unchallenged.

Cash’s life has so far furnished numerous books, including two autobiographies from the man himself. He also wrote a 1986 novel, The Man in White, about Saul’s transformation into St Paul. His own Damascene conversion was given the Hollywood treatment in the Oscar-winning 2005 film Walk the Line, which further enshrined his reputation as a modern American saint.

Now along comes the English translation of Reinhard Kleist’s I See a Darkness, a “graphic biography” about Cash: the man in black has become the man in black and white. First published in Germany in 2006, it adds little to our understanding of him. But Kleist’s vivid illustrations, nonetheless, make a handsome addition to Cash mythology.

Like the “boom chicka boom” sound of Cash’s original backing band The Tennessee Three, I See a Darkness rattles through his life. Framed by a true-life subplot about a song-writing prisoner awaiting Cash’s 1968 comeback concert at Folsom prison, it follows its protagonist from his impoverished youth singing while picking cotton in Arkansas to his emergence as a recording artist under the patronage of Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who discovered Elvis.

Cash’s marriage to his first wife Vivian presents a pram-in-the-hallway dilemma. The tyro singer has to choose between family or music – and chooses music. A less idealistic biography might look critically at this aspect of Cash’s life, as he goes from gig to gig wired on Benzedrine and Dexedrine pills, all but abandoning his wife and children to pursue an affair with backing singer June Carter. Yet Kleist depicts him as black-suited outlaw, one hand on the steering wheel of his enormous finned car, the other firing up a cigarette, face hard with manly determination. It is a varnished picture; but in Kleist’s bold, fast strokes, it is a seductive one.

The plot endorses June Carter Cash’s belief that the childhood death of Cash’s brother Jack in a sawmill accident was a trauma that haunted Cash into adulthood. Perhaps so – though the clunky dialogue peppering Kleist’s pictures doesn’t allow much space for psychological complexity. The quality of the drawing goes some way to making good the shortfall, however – a key image shows Cash, guitar slung on his back, hands clenched, entering the packed hall at Folsom Prison like a man preparing to face his demons.

The extent to which Cash consciously constructed his image is hinted at but not developed. Kleist buys into the myth of Cash. He does it justice too.

Ludovic Hunter-Tilney is the FT’s pop critic