Doghouse Roses

'A beautiful and moving collection of short stories by one of our greatest songwriters. It reads like a collaboration between Steinbeck and Kerouac and Bukowski. Steve Earle has taken the great American road song and set it to prose' Jay McInerney

Steve Earle leans hard on his own tough experience as a junkie and jailbird to produce a series of gut-wrenching tales filled with humanity

Doghouse Roses is the real thing, a collection of spare, economical and truly compelling tales, as well-crafted as the songs, and just as moving. Earle takes risks; he cares about his characters, and he cares about language. "The Witness" is as well-paced and urgent as any story I have read in the past several years, and would certainly stand its ground alongside the established masters

Heartfelt, romantic, they are thoughtful and genuinely hardbitten. An impressive and engaging debut

Meticulously crafted character studies that assess and re-assess the human condition...consolidates an already brilliant but tumultuous career. In keeping with another great chronicler of the American male, John Steinbeck

Steve Earle is a singer-songwriter, actor, activist, and the author of 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. Frequently interviewed and profiled in the press, he often tours with his wife, singer-songwriter Allison Moorer.

Steve Earle is widely regarded as one of the finest narrative songwriters in the world. These stories, peopled with addicts, hitchhikers, singers, Vietnam vets and drug smugglers, reflect the many facets of the man and the hard-fought struggles, defeats and eventual triumphs he has experienced in a career spanning three decades.

Steve Earle

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

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

Earle's language is vividly poetic, his humour is never clunky and he always convinces, whether working on a cinematic or intimate scale

A rich, raw mix of American myth and hard social reality, of faith and doubt, always firmly rooted in a strong sense of character

Steve Earle writes like a shimmering neon angel

The former junkie and 'hardcore troubadour' has fought his demons and found God. Now he wants to show us how it's done

Earle seems to have little trouble expanding his range from a three-minute song to a 300-page narrative... And though the novel comes no closer to establishing the facts of Hank Williams's death, it certainly reveals a good deal of truth behind it

A witty, heartfelt story of hope, forgiveness and redemption

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.

Steve Earle

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. I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is like a dream you can't shake, offering beauty and ...

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 ...

Earle's language is vividly poetic, his humour is never clunky and he always convinces, whether working on a cinematic or intimate scale

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 ...

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 ...

Earle's language is vividly poetic, his humour is never clunky and he always convinces, whether working on a cinematic or intimate scale

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 ...

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 ...

Earle's language is vividly poetic, his humour is never clunky and he always convinces, whether working on a cinematic or intimate scale

Books by Steve Earle

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter