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BILL MACPHERSON BOOK REVIEW


I’ll Never Get Out of


This World Alive Steve Earle (Mariner)


Apparently not content or busy


enough with being a singer/songwriter, political activist and actor, Steve Earle’s first novel is a decent enough read. He’s no Faulkner, not even a Hemingway for that matter, but he writes about what he knows and tells a pretty good tale of depravity, despair, healing and redemption. “I’ll Never Get Out of This World


Alive” is of course one of Hank William’s best known songs, and it’s the perfect title for Earle’s south Texas story: San Antonio in 1963, to be more specific, and the worst part of that city – South Presa Street – is where it’s set. Doc is a disgraced doctor (go


figure!) with a nasty heroin habit performing abortions amidst the squalor and human wreckage that makes up the street. Junkies, hookers, pimps and dealers are the people he co-exists with on a daily basis. Adding to his own sorry existence, Doc is haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams. It’s a long-time relationship, as Doc


might or might not have helped in Hank William’s early demise, and one that is by turns needy and antagonistic − the latter particularly so after a young Mexican girl with apparent supernatural powers enters the fray. Reformative miracles begin to happen in the middle of all that pain and suffering. The ghost is not happy as circumstances change, and he’s playing second fiddle in Doc’s nether and real world. As a whole, the novel is a bit over


the top, inviting a certain measure of disbelief, as corruption, Catholicism, mysticism and the assassination of JFK are all added to the sordid South Presa mix. There’s plenty of grit and violence too, although in the context of some of the characters it’s somewhat implausible. But hey, this is fiction after all, so liberties can be taken and unlikely circumstances allowed, especially for a first time novelist. A former junkie himself, Earle has


been down this path. He knows the misery and pain of addiction; his writing in this regard has the ring of truth. The characters are predictable –


the worn out junkie abortionist, the Mexican dope dealer, the beautiful, compassionate senorita, the corrupt cop, the needling ghost – but to Earle’s credit they aren’t just cardboard cut- outs. He fleshes them out nicely within the context of a novel that meanders descriptively – and the descriptions aren’t very pretty − towards its inevitable ending, one that is somewhat far-fetched but strangely satisfying too. Even if the story is a tad contrived


and the writing weak at times, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” is entertaining. The novel is much like his songs – there is truth and honesty in them and they tell a tale. It might not be pretty in Earle’s fictional world, but the man has been there in real life. He writes like he sings, with honesty, experience and acknowledgement of the seedier side of life.


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