I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive [Hardcover]

Steve Earle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 2011

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2011: Steve Earle's heartbreaking debut novel features a morphine addict who performs illegal abortions, a young Mexican girl with mysterious healing powers, the ghost of Hank Williams, and a host of other more or less charismatic misfits. Set in San Antonio around the time of JFK’s assassination, and told with an equal mix of sympathy and violent detail, the story maintains a delicate balance of many such would-be opposing forces: Catholicism and "hoodoo," addiction and redemption, brutal reality and magical realism. A first novel this compelling from any author would be cause for celebration, but Earle is also a musician (the GRAMMY®-winning albums Washington Square Serenade and Townes), actor (The Wire), and activist, and in this context the book is even more of a watershed accomplishment. I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is decidedly not for the faint of art, but adventuresome fiction readers will find much to love in its shocking, tender depths. --Jason Kirk

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. 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

". . . 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 Irving’s 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, he’d love Earle’s magnificently human, big-hearted drifters."

—Howard Frank Mosher

 

"Colorful, cool, and downright gripping."

—Robert Earl Keen

"Reads like the best of Steve Earle’s story songs, which means real good. The tale of a more charmingly haunted, trying-to-do-the-right-thing dope fiend you won’t 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 he’s 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  

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (May 12, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618820965
• ISBN-13: 978-0618820962
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #223,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 59 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Steve Earle's first novel: a mixture of good, evil, addiction, morality, and religion May 2, 2011

By Ryan Winkleman VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Steve Earle's first novel (his first book was the collection of short stories Doghouse Roses: Stories) is a well-written story that is unmistakably a Steve Earle product. Framed in the weeks before and the months after JFK's assassination (and in reality written in a time when Earle was struggling to come to terms with his father's death and needed an outlet, of which the album I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is also a product), "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" tells the fictional story of Doc Ebersole, a fallen-from-grace MD who now practices medicine (mostly abortions) out of a boarding house in the South Presa Strip of San Antonio and struggles with a twice-daily morphine habit. As Doc was allegedly the last to see Hank Williams alive ten years earlier, Hank's ghost has the curious and often unhealthy (for Doc) habit of haunting Doc, mainly when he's high but also just when Hank is lonely, continuously pushing Doc to keep pushing the drug into his veins. One day, however, a young Mexican girl named Graciela is brought to Doc in need of an abortion. The two grow fond of each other during and after her recovery and it soon becomes apparent that all is not what it seems with Graciela as strange miracles begin happening on the South Presa Strip, attracting the attention not only of the local lost souls, but also of the local priest Father Killen. The end result is an explosive climax befitting all the characters involved, from Father Killen to Doc's dealer and somewhat friend Manny to Doc himself and to Graciela. Even to Hank.

The novel itself is an easy read. At around 250 pages, it is not too long, and the language is written in Earle's typical "everyman" diction that he uses in his lyrics and now in his books. The characters are fairly well-written, some better than others (Father Killen seems a little unbelievable at times, even with the efforts to give him a background), but the real meat of the writing is Doc's addiction, the realism of which is fueled by the knowledge that Earle had his own much-publicized demons in his younger days. It is hard to read the (sometimes unsettling) descriptions of Doc's drug trips and not feel that Earle has somehow put some of his own experience into the writing. Earle's fictionalized descriptions of Hank Williams' ghost also weave well into the story, as Doc struggles to balance his obligations to those around him with the ghost that haunts him. The story itself seems familiar and like one that we've all heard before, as a sort of twist on the good vs. evil motif. At times it feels a little predictable, but Earle tries to stay one step ahead of the reader to keep you guessing, his skills as a songwriter aiding in his ability to tell a good story. Deftly walking a line between matters of good and evil, addiction, morality, and religion, Steve Earle's "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" comes recommended not only to his fans, but also to those who love a good story.

44 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pain and redemption April 25, 2011

By C. D. Cronenberg

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been a long term fan of Steve Earle from the cheesy steinberger-esque riff of Guitar Town to the point after my military service that my politics and his aligned. I see him every time he goes on tour through Texas and digest everything he creates. That said, I was concerned that his attempt at a novel may been too far reaching. How wrong I was, this mournful tale of pain could only be written by him. Only someone with his history and past could convey this story. I can't wait for this to be made into a movie. I can see it straight, or as a Bubba HotepBubba Ho-Tep (Hail to the King Edition)style film. This is not a star attempting something different; this is a great book by a great author.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "Journey To A Place Both Far and Near" May 7, 2011

By Susan K. Schoonover TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Progressive country singer Steve Earle's new novel I I'LL NEVER GET OUT OF THIS WORLD ALIVE is peopled with interesting characters. The plot revolves around Doc a morphine addict who has skidded from respectable Louisiana physician to illegal abortionist/emergency physician in a seedy section of 1960's San Antonio. In an original if risky move Doc is haunted by the ghost of tragic hillbilly singer Hank Williams. In Earle's telling Doc was the doctor who supplied "Ole Hank" with his morphine and gave him his last shot shortly before his controversial death in 1953 at the age of twenty-nine. The book's title is an ironic reference to one of Williams' last recorded hits. The third leading player is Graciela a young Mexican immigrant girl who is taken to Doc for an abortion and ends up staying with him as his companion and apprentice. Graciela has mysterious healing powers of both the body and mind that seem to be connected to a stigmata like wound on her wrist. An overweight drug dealer, a lesbian prostitute couple, a strong transvestite named Tiff and a deranged priest are among the most memorable of the well rendered supporting cast.

The book is set in the months surrounding JFK's assassination and Doc and company even visit the San Antonio airport to see the young president and his glamorous wife on the eve of his death. Author Earle is a good storyteller and his novel is a fast and easy read. He seems to have envisioned some larger themes that go unfulfilled and this failure keeps the book from being great rather than merely good.