Musician Steve Earle’s Take On Addiction, Through Fiction

He’s a Grammy winner who has also acted in the critically acclaimed HBO shows The Wire and Treme. Now Steve Earle is a novelist, too, following up his 2001 collection of short stories with the fictional I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive. Borrowing its title from a Hank Williams Sr. song, the book is a somber tale haunted by the ghost of Williams Sr. and tainted by the reality of addiction.

While Earle is writing what he knows, drawing on a personal heroin addiction that he barely survived, it’s not just a fictionalized version of his life story or a thinly veiled rock ‘n’ roll saga. Since getting clean in the mid-90s, Earle has been brimming with creativity. The book is just the latest in a long line of successful artistic pursuits. Set on the south side of San Antonio and centering around an aging morphine addict known as Doc, the gritty story includes a charming cast of troubled characters, but it definitely includes a redemptive side.

That hard-won hope mirrors the recovery process itself. As anyone who ever pursued treatment for a substance abuse issue knows, it’s a difficult process filled with ups and downs. That part of the story will definitely ring true to anyone with a background of addiction.

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