Synopses & Reviews
Praise for I'LL NEVER GET OUT OF THIS WORLD ALIVE
"Steve Earle brings to his prose the same authenticity, poetic spirit, and cinematic energy he projects in his music. Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive is like a dream you cant shake, offering beauty and remorse, redemption in spades." —Patti Smith ". . . a doctor, a Mexican girl, an Irish priest, the ghost of Hank Williams, and JFK the day before he dies. This subtle and dramatic book is the work of a brilliant songwriter who has moved from song to orchestral ballad with astonishing ease." —Michael Ondaatje "A rich, raw mix of American myth and hard social reality, of faith and doubt, always firmly rooted in a strong sense of character." —Charles Frazier "Steve Earle writes like a shimmering neon angel." —Kinky Friedman "Earle has created a potent blend of realism and mysticism. Musician, actor, and now novelist—is there another artist in America with such wide-ranging talent?" —Ron Rash "The characters are unforgettable and the plot moves like a fast train. A fantastic mixture of hard reality and dark imagination." —Thomas Cobb "A haunting and haunted bookend to Irvings Cider House Rules. Gritty and transcendent, Earle has successfully created his own potion of Texas, twang, and dope-tinged magic realism." —Alice Randall
Review
"Earle (a hell of a songwriter himself) has written
a deft, big-spirited novel about sin, faith, redemption, and the family of man." --
Entertainment Weekly "Earle draws on the rough-and-tumble tenderness in his music to create
a witty, heartfelt story of hope, forgiveness, and redemption." --
Booklist "In this spruce debut novel...hard-core troubadour Earle ponders miracles, morphine and mortality in 1963 San Antonio... With its Charles Portis vibe and the author's immense cred as a musician and actor, this should have no problem finding the wide audience it deserves." --
Publishers Weekly "A thematically ambitious debut novel that draws from the writer's experience, yet isn't simply a memoir in the guise of fiction...richly imagined..." --
Kirkus Reviews, starred "Steve Earle brings to his prose the same authenticity, poetic spirit and cinematic energy he projects in his music.
Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive is like a dream you can't shake, offering beauty and remorse, redemption in spades." —Patti Smith ". . . a doctor, a Mexican girl, an Irish priest, the ghost of Hank Williams, and JFK the day before he dies. This subtle and dramatic book is the work of a brilliant songwriter who has moved from song to orchestral ballad with astonishing ease." —Michael Ondaatje "A rich, raw mix of American myth and hard social reality, of faith and doubt, always firmly rooted in a strong sense of character." —Charles Frazier "Steve Earle writes like a shimmering neon angel." —Kinky Friedman "Earle has created a potent blend of realism and mysticism in this compelling, morally complex story of troubled souls striving for a last chance at redemption. Musician, actor, and now novelist—is there another artist in America with such wide-ranging talent?" —Ron Rash "The characters are unforgettable, and the plot moves like a fast train. A fantastic mixture of hard reality and dark imagination." —Thomas Cobb "Raw, honest and unafraid, this novel veers in and out of the lives of its many memorable characters with flawless pitch. Earle has given us dozens of remarkable songs, he has given us a dazzling collection of short stories, and now here's his first novel, a doozy from a great American storyteller." —Tom Franklin "A haunting and haunted bookend to Irvings
Cider House Rules. Gritty and transcendent, Earle has successfully created his own potion of Texas, twang, and dope-tinged magic-realism."
—Alice Randall "If Jesus were to return tomorrow to twenty-first-century America, and do some street preaching on the gritty South Presa Strip of San Antonio, hed love Earles magnificently human, big-hearted drifters." —Howard Frank Mosher "Colorful, cool, and downright gripping." —Robert Earl Keen "Reads like the best of Steve Earles story songs, which means real good. The tale of a more charmingly haunted, trying-to-do-the-right-thing dope fiend you wont easily find." —Mark Jacobson "The best book I've read since The Road. As much or more than any other artist of his generation Steve Earle rises to the call, culturally and politically, traditionally in folk and country and rock music and what hes added there, and with acting and writing for theater, and now with all the literary forms crescendoing in this beautiful novel. He just keeps stepping up." —R. B. Morris "Steve Earle astonishes us yet again. Country Rock's outlaw legend brings the ghost of Hank Williams to life in a gloriously gritty first novel that soars like a song. And echoes in the heart." —Terry Bisson
"A mighty fine piece of storytelling." —Madison Smartt Bell
Review
"A deft, big-spirited novel about sin, faith, redemption, and the family of man ... You keep reading and you keep believing."
—Entertainment Weekly
“Steve Earle brings to his prose the same authenticity, poetic spirit, and cinematic energy he projects in his music. Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive is like a dream you cant shake, offering beauty and remorse, redemption in spades.”
—Patti Smith
“Shot through with humor and insight and ... enough action and intriguing characters in it to keep readers turning pages.”
—Boston Globe
“Earles writing never lacks heart.”
—New York Times Book Review
“As he does in his songs, Earle finds the tenuous points of emotional connection between characters who are living not only on the edges of their own ability to cope, but often on the very margins of society itself.”
—Rolling Stone
"This subtle and dramatic book is the work of a brilliant songwriter who has moved from song to orchestral ballad with astonishing ease."
—Michael Ondaatje
"Earle has delivered plenty of potent messages during his turbulent career, but he has never pricked the publics conscience in as many different ways ... The renegade troubadour-turned-renaissance man ... challenge[s] audiences to think about mortality, redemption, addiction, artistic commitment and other soul-searing questions."
—USA Today
"Raw, honest and unafraid, this novel veers in and out of the lives of its many memorable characters with flawless pitch. Steve Earle has given us dozens of remarkable songs, he has given us a dazzling collection of short stories, and now heres his first novel, a doozy from a great American storyteller."
—Tom Franklin
"Earle is pointing out that in fiction reality can merge with myth in the service of a larger truth . . . [Ill Never Get out of This World Alive] aspires to a certain gritty transcendence . . . [and] comes with a mythic underpinning, a touch of the mysteries."
—Los Angeles Times
"Iconic country-rocker Earles imaginative first novel follows the troubled life of Doc Ebersole, who may have supplied the shot of morphine that killed country legend Hank Williams . . . Earle draws on the rough-and-tumble tenderness in his music to create a witty, heartfelt story of hope, forgiveness, and redemption."
—Booklist
"This is an impressive debut novel. The characters are unforgettable, and the plot moves like a fast train. A fantastic mixture of hard reality and dark imagination."
—Thomas Cobb
"Earle has created a potent blend of realism and mysticism in this compelling, morally complex story of troubled souls striving for a last chance at redemption. Musician, actor, and now novelist—is there another artist in America with such wide-ranging talent?"
—Ron Rash
"In this spruce debut novel . . . hard-core troubadour Earle ponders miracles, morphine, and mortality . . .With its Charles Portis vibe and the authors immense cred as a musician and actor, this should have no problem finding the wide audience it deserves."
—Publishers Weekly
"This richly imagined novel not only takes its title from a Hank Williams classic, it audaciously employs Hanks ghost as a combination of morphine demon and guardian angel . . . Already well-respected for both his music and his acting, Earle can now add novelist to an impressive résumé."
—Kirkus, starred review
"What a delight to read this novel and find so many elements Ive admired in Steve Earles songwriting for nearly twenty-five years. It is a rich, raw mix of American myth and hard social reality, of faith and doubt, always firmly rooted in a strong sense of character."
—Charles Frazier
"Steve Earle writes like a shimmering neon angel."
—Kinky Friedman
"Earles first novel provides a haunting and haunted bookend to Irvings Cider House Rules. The ghost of Hank Williams walks through this abortionists tale that has much to do with grace and aging and death—and the power of the feminine. Gritty and transcendent, Earle has successfully created his own potion of Texas, twang, and dope-tinged magic-realism."
—Alice Randall
"Everyone knows that Steve Earle ranks among the very best, and most authentic, songwriters in the history of America. With his first novel, Earle has established himself as one of our most knowledgeable and sympathetic writers period. He is a natural-born storyteller. If Jesus were to return tomorrow to 21st-century America, and do some street preaching on the gritty South Presa Strip of San Antonio, hed love Earles magnificently human, big-hearted drifters. Only the man who wrote "Copperhead Road" could have authored Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive."
—Howard Frank Mosher
"A poignant story of madness and redemption woven into a tapestry of real world desperation and old world magic. Its colorful, cool, and downright gripping."
—Robert Earl Keen
"The best book Ive read since The Road. With the lure of Hank Williams ghost, a touch of the Kennedy assassination, a little Castaneda and a few miracles, he takes on the underworld and organized religion, and reality as its generally supposed, with great certainty and research and style."
—R. B. Morris
"Steve Earle astonishes us yet again. Country Rocks outlaw legend brings the ghost of Hank Williams to life in a gloriously gritty first novel that soars like a song. And echoes in the heart."
—Terry Bisson
"Ill Never Get out of This World Alive reads like the best of Steve Earles story songs, which means real good. The tale of a more charmingly haunted, trying-to-do-the-right-thing dope fiend you wont easily find."
—Mark Jacobson
"Outsider artists like Steve Earle bring a breath of fresh air to the literary world. I just wish theyd come around more often. Richly imagined and handily crafted—a mighty fine piece of storytelling."
—Madison Smartt Bell
"Perhaps only another great country singer would have the courage to cast [country singer Hank] Williams in the guise of a malignant hillbilly harpy, whose presence inevitably heralds imminent doom . . . And though the novel comes no closer to establishing the facts of Hank Williamss death, it certainly reveals a good deal of the truth behind it."
—Guardian (UK)
Review
"Everyone knows that terrible things happen in old country songs: A wife leaves her husband; a guy dies at war. Life's rough, times are hard.
Steve Earle, the well-known singer-songwriter, embraces this heartbreaky landscape in his first novel, a rowdy country music song turned into narration. The book's title -- and what a superb title it is -- comes from Hank Williams' last No. 1 hit, before his death, at age 29, in 1953.
Hank's ghost haunts the pages of Earle's story. But mostly he just haunts Doc, an ex-doctor who's fallen on hard times. Long ago, Doc injected Hank with morphine, to ease his back pain, which may have contributed to his death." Don Waters, San Francisco Chronicle (Read the entire San Francisco Chronicle review)
Synopsis
Doc Ebersole lives with the ghost of Hank Williams—not just in the figurative sense, not just because he was one of the last people to see him alive, and not just because he is rumored to have given Hank the final morphine dose that killed him.
In 1963, ten years after Hank's death, Doc himself is wracked by addiction. Having lost his license to practice medicine, his morphine habit isn't as easy to support as it used to be. So he lives in a rented room in the red-light district on the south side of San Antonio, performing abortions and patching up the odd knife or gunshot wound. But when Graciela, a young Mexican immigrant, appears in the neighborhood in search of Doc's services, miraculous things begin to happen. Graciela sustains a wound on her wrist that never heals, yet she heals others with the touch of her hand. Everyone she meets is transformed for the better, except, maybe, for Hank's angry ghost—who isn't at all pleased to see Doc doing well.
A brilliant excavation of an obscure piece of music history, Steve Earle's I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is also a marvelous novel in its own right, a ballad of regret and redemption, and of the ways in which we remake ourselves and our world through the smallest of miracles.
Synopsis
A novel based on the imagined life of Hank Williams's sidekick and sometimes doctor, Doc Ebersole, and his haunting by his famous, dead friend.
Synopsis
A brilliant tale of regret and redemption haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams, Steve Earle's debut novel brings to life an obscure piece of music history.
Synopsis
“Steve Earle brings to his prose the same authenticity, poetic spirit, and cinematic energy he projects in his music.
Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive is like a dream you cant shake, offering beauty and remorse, redemption in spades.” —Patti Smith
“Shot through with humor and insight and . . . enough action and intriguing characters in it to keep readers turning pages.” —Boston Globe
Doc Ebersole lives with the ghost of Hank Williams. Literally.
In 1963, ten years after he may have given Hank the morphine shot that killed him, Doc has lost his license. Living in the red-light district of San Antonio, he performs abortions and patches up the odd knife wound to feed his addiction. But when Graciela, a young Mexican immigrant, appears in the neighborhood in search of Docs services, miraculous things begin to happen. Everyone she meets is transformed for the better, except, maybe, for Hanks angry ghost—who isnt at all pleased to see Doc doing well.
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About the Author
STEVE EARLE is a singer-songwriter, actor, activist, and the author of a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, the story collection Doghouse Roses. He has released more than a dozen critically acclaimed albums, including the Grammy winners The Revolution Starts Now, Washington Square Serenade, and Townes. He has appeared on film and television, with celebrated roles in The Wire and Treme. His album entitled Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive was produced by T Bone Burnett. He often tours with his wife, singer-songwriter Allison Moorer.