Doghouse Roses: Stories - Hardcover

Earle, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618040269 ISBN 13: 9780618040261

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 2001

Synopsis

A debut collection of short fiction by the popular singer-songwriter features brutally honest, sometimes autobiographical tales, including the title story about a singer whose life has nearly been destroyed by drugs, "Wheeler County" about a hitchhiker stranded for years in a small Texas town, "Billy the Kid," and more. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

STEVE EARLE is a singer-songwriter who has released ten critically acclaimed albums since his 1986 debut album, Guitar Town, burst onto the Nashville scene and made him a star overnight. A prolonged struggle with drug addiction resulted in jail time in the early 1990s, but Earle’s recovery and comeback albums, beginning wth the 1995 Grammy-nominated Train A Comin’, have all been critical and commercial successes. His latest album is Transcendental Blues. Earle also works on behalf of a number of political causes, which have been the subjects of his songs for decades. In the struggle to end the death penalty, he serves as a board member of the Journey of Hope and is affiliated with both Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP) and the Abolitionist Action Committee. He is also a supporter of the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World and the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. He has been the subject of recent profiles in Esquire and Men’s Journal and has appeared on Nightline and CBS Sunday Morning. He is a frequent guest on David Letterman’s and Jay Leno’s shows.

Reviews

Reading this uneven collection of 11 stories by underground country music legend Earle is like listening to an album that has been rushed into production to meet a deadline. A couple of the entries are quite good, but others are clumsy, mawkish and preachy. Many deal with drug addiction something with which Earle has had considerable experience and, while realistic, they serve as little more than vehicles for sentiments one might hear expressed at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Earle is also a staunch opponent of the death penalty, and "The Witness" comes off as a well-meaning piece of propaganda to that end. The best story is "The Reunion," in which a dying American ends up in Ho Chi Minh City, where he finds he shares common memories of the war with the Vietnamese soldier sent to evict him from his hotel room. Though the coincidences are pretty unbelievable, the bond that develops between the two men is touching without being overly melodramatic. The final piece, "A Well-Tempered Heart," is typical country ballad material, packing more clich‚s into its four pages than a bad novel. Stories like "Taneytown" (in which Earle dubiously attempts the voice of a young black man), "Billy the Kid" and "The Red Suitcase" are the kind even beginning writers should know to put away in a drawer. Earle's fiction thrives on a love of hyperbole and maudlin sentiment, both of which are perhaps best confined to country songs. (June)Forecast: Earle's cult following has increased in the wake of a recent Grammy nomination, as well as profiles in major magazines and appearances on David Letterman's show all of which, along with national advertising and a 10-city author tour, will help spur sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Earle's first collection of short fiction runs true to the colorful pattern of his own life as an alternative-country musician, rehabilitated drug addict, and both winner and loser at love. The title story depicts the final straw that breaks drug-abuser musician Bobby's tautly stretched marriage. "Reunion" brings the Vietnam War to life from the perspective of former enemies haunted by their experiences, and "Jaguar Dance" illuminates a nightmarish episode in the life of a drug-smuggling pilot. There are also bittersweet stories, such as "Billy the Kid," in which a talented unknown musician, about to take the business by storm, proves he's truly the stuff of which legends are made. Earle's widening reputation as a musician is soon to be rivaled by his renown as a talented storyteller. Suitable for most collections.
- Margee Smith, Grace A. Dow Memorial Lib., Midland, MI
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Singer-songwriter Earle, an anti-death-penalty activist, a former heroin addict, and a veteran of six divorces, packs his perspective on all these issues into his first collection of short stories, which feature junkies, guitarists, doomed love affairs, and lonely drifters. His characters inhabit the dusty corners of border towns, trailer parks, hotel rooms, and dimly lit bars, where they struggle to undo the consequences of bad choices and to make sense of life, love, and record contracts. The stories featuring musicians, particularly musicians struggling with drug problems, are written with the most heart, further proof of the wisdom of "writing what you know." The plots are often predictable, but their familiarity is almost comforting--not unlike a good rock ballad. It is when Earle tries on other points of view (a kindly retarded man, a black child, a Vietnamese colonel) that the stories feel most flat and cliched. The collection never forms a cohesive whole, but its heart is in the right place, and Earle's name is sure to generate interest. Carrie Bissey
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

By now it's after eleven, and the traffic is light, by L.A. standards. It's one of those spooky nights, entirely too quiet for a city of nine million, when mercury vapor lights throw ghostly shadows on the ground fog and the car exhaust, creating an eerie yellow glow. Spectral palm trees, their roots shackled by acres of concrete, seem to stand on tiptoes, straining to keep their heads above the noxious layer at street level. The names on the big green signs appear suddenly and slightly out of focus -- Covina, Pomona, Ontario, and on and on, and you look up through your sun roof and you still don't see any stars, only a sort of fallout created by manmade light striking the opaque canopy above and shattering, diffusing into colors not found in nature before falling back to earth in defeat.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0618040269
• ISBN 13: 9780618040261
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 206