Doghouse Roses: Stories

Steve Earle does everything he does with intelligence, creativity, passion, and integrity. In music, these strengths have earned him comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, the ardent devotion of his fans, and the admiration of the media. And Earle does a lot: he is singer, songwriter, producer, social activist, teacher.... Hes not only someone who makes great music; hes someone to believe in. With the publication of his first collection of short stories, DOGHOUSE ROSES, he gives us yet another reason to believe. Earles stories reflect the many facets of the man and the hard-fought struggles, the defeats, and the eventual triumphs he has experienced during a career spanning three decades. In the title story he offers us a gut-wrenchingly honest portrait of a nearly famous singer whose life and soul have been all but devoured by drugs. "Billy the Kid" is a fable about everything that will never happen in Nashville, and "Wheeler County" tells a romantic, sweet-tempered tale about a hitchhiker stranded for years in a small Texas town. A story about the husband of a murder victim witnessing an execution addresses a subject Earle has passionately taken on as a social activist, and a cycle of stories features "the American," a shady international wanderer, Vietnam vet, and sometime drug smuggler - a character who can be seen as Earles alter ego, the person he might have become if he had been drafted. Earle is a songwriters songwriter, and here he takes his writing gift into another medium, along with all the grace, poetry, and deep feeling that has made his music honored around the world.

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.