Steve Earle – författare

När den världsberömda amerikanska singer-songwritern Steve Earle romandebuterar gör han det med en stenhård berättelse från Texas skuggsida. Det är klassisk amerikansk mytologi mixad med smutsig drogskimrande realism. Doc Ebersole hemsöks av countrylegenden Hank Williams vålnad, inte bara i en bildlig bemärkelse, utan vålnaden har blivit Docs ständige följeslagare. Kanske beror det på att han var en av de sista som såg Hank i livet eller kanske på grund av att han gav honom den sista morfindosen, en dos som ryktas ha varit dödlig. Året är 1963, tio år efter Hanks Williams bortgång, och Doc dras med ett furiöst missbruk. Han har förlorat sin läkarlicens och hyr ett litet rum i de sjabbiga delarna av San Antonio. Där utför han ljusskygga aborter eller plåstrar ihop kniv- eller skottskador. En dag dyker det upp en mexikansk flicka, Graciela, i desperat behov av Docs tjänster och en kedja av mirakulösa händelser tar sin start. Graciela visar sig besitta helgonliknande krafter. Alla som kommer i kontakt med den unga mexikanska flickan förändras till det bättre, alla utom Hanks rasande vålnad som inte alls gillar att Doc för en gångs skull känner sig tillfreds med tillvaron. Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive är en briljant djupdykning i en obskyr musikhistorisk fotnot och samtidigt också en fantastisk roman i sin egen rätt. Det är en vemodig berättelse om ånger och botgöring och människans förmåga att omstöpa sig själv och sin omgivning med hjälp av minsta lilla mirakel. Steve Earle rör sig hemtamt på sin egen bakgård med en berättelse som rusar fram likt ett godståg. Steve Earle fyller sin prosa med samma äkthet, poetiska själ och visuella kraft som man hittar i hans musik. Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive är som en efterhängsen dröm... Patti Smith

Steve Earle does everything he does with intelligence, creativity, passion, and integrity. In music, these strengths have earned him comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, the ardent devotion of his fans, and the admiration of the media. And Earle does a lot: he is singer, songwriter, producer, social activist, teacher. . . . He’s not only someone who makes great music; he’s someone to believe in. With the publication of his first collection of short stories, Doghouse Roses, he gives us yet another reason to believe. Earle’s stories reflect the many facets of the man and the hard-fought struggles, the defeats, and the eventual triumphs he has experienced during a career spanning three decades. In the title story he offers us a gut-wrenchingly honest portrait of a nearly famous singer whose life and soul have been all but devoured by drugs. “Billy the Kid” is a fable about everything that will never happen in Nashville, and “Wheeler County” tells a romantic, sweet-tempered tale about a hitchhiker stranded for years in a small Texas town. A story about the husband of a murder victim witnessing an execution addresses a subject Earle has passionately taken on as a social activist, and a cycle of stories features “the American,” a shady international wanderer, Vietnam vet, and sometime drug smuggler — a character who can be seen as Earle’s alter ego, the person he might have become if he had been drafted. Earle is a songwriter’s songwriter, and here he takes his writing gift into another medium, along with all the grace, poetry, and deep feeling that has made his music honored around the world.

“I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive is like a dream you can’t shake, offering beauty and remorse, redemption in spades.” —Patti Smith, singer-songwriter, poet, visual artist, and author of Just KidsDoc 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.“In fine songwriter fashion, [Earle] relies on the familiar forms—verse, chorus, verse—to create this Texas noir.” —The Washington Post

Doc Ebersole lives with the ghost of Hank Williams. Literally.In 1963, ten years after giving Hank the overdose that killed him, Doc is wracked by addiction. Having lost his licence to practise medicine, 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 neighbourhood in search of Doc's services, miraculous things begin to happen. 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.I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is a poetic ghost story, as well as a ballad of regret and redemption, and miracles.