I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive

July 25, 2011
Doc Ebersole has a serious morphine habit, one that ruined his medical career and left him performing back-alley abortions in San Antonio while being haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams. When a young woman arrives at his doorstep searching for an abortion, the two slowly bond as her spiritual power to heal begins to affect Doc. Steve Earle narrates his novel of despair, magic, and 1960s history with a solid Southern twang that lends authenticity to the story. He proves versatile in creating voices for his characters, switching between Southern and Spanish and flat Midwestern accents. However, Earle occasionally fails to adequately distinguish between his narration and Doc's dialogue, which can confuse listeners. Additionally, his female voices could use some refinement, as they sometimes disrupt the narrative flow. A Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardcover.

March 21, 2011
In this spruce debut novel (nine years after his short story collection, Doghouse Roses), hard-core troubadour Earle ponders miracles, morphine, and mortality in 1963 San Antonio, Tex., where aging junkie Doc Ebersole performs backroom abortions to support his habit. Ten years before, the doctor was riding shotgun while his patient, fishing buddy, and fellow addict Hank Williams coughed his last in the Cadillac's backseat. Ever since, Hank has haunted Doc, who now "saw no need to squander more than a single syllable on a miserable life such as his own." Hank's ghost berates Doc for taking in one of Doc's "in trouble" Mexican girls, Graciela, who has breathed life not only into the lonesome codger, but into scores of San Antonio desperados who slink through their boarding-house clinic. Word is spreading that Graciela heals and redeems, and that even Doc might kick his habit if he doesn't kick the bucket first. 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. It won't hurt that Earle's next album comes out around the same time and shares the title.