Crazy Heart

As the many people who saw the Academy Award-winning movie based on this novel know, CRAZY HEART is a gut-wrenching, cry-in-your-beer story of Bad Blake, the once-great country songwriter who is down on his luck, too often drunk, and four times divorced. He's gritty, gravelly, honest, and a little saggy. The author dramatizes Bad's life in 1987 as he travels to gigs in bowling alleys and small-town bars and reminisces about his life as a 1960-'70s country singer. When Bad meets Jean and her son, Buddy, he rediscovers the man hiding inside. While there's no singing in this audiobook, Cobb delivers the performance scenes with such passion that the listener remembers each honky-tonk, each rehearsal, and each show. Cobb brings out the flicker of hope in the recovering alcoholic when he writes and sells two terrific songs inspired by Jean. The ending will bring you to tears. M.B.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

September 1, 1987
Singer and guitarist Bad Blake was once a first-rate country-and-western star, but now he's 57, an alcoholic, a failure at four marriages, and playing in third-rate clubs. The biggest gig he can get is opening for Tommy Sweet, the kid Bad got started and whose career has now eclipsed Bad's. Bad meets Jean Craddock when she comes to interview him and they fall in love. Her little boy, Buddy, inspires Bad to search for his own long-lost son, but there's no happy ending there. And when Bad, hungry for a drink, loses Jean's son, things take a downturn, despite Bad's fling with AA. This first novel has the authentic patter and ambience of those seedy one-night-stands, but the plot is thin and the ending is very downbeat. There will be heavy promotion and advertising, so requests may warrant purchase. Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Lib., Seaside, Cal.

Copyright 1987 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.