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. . . . He’s not only someone who makes great music; he’s someone to believe in. With the publication of his first collection of short stories, Doghouse Roses , he gives us yet another reason to believe. Earle’s 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 Earle’s alter ego, the person he might have become if he had been drafted. Earle is a songwriter’s 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. "Earle's narrative voice sounds like a sage in a smoky bar..." Kirkus Reviews "[A] surprisingly fine short story collection…" The Star Tribune "A heartfelt, beautifully observed collection of stories." The Oregonian "[Earle's] ability to write so close to the bone…makes Doghouse Roses such an entertaining read." The Los Angeles Times "They haven't been shaped…by the small magazines or mainstream monthly editors. There's an appealing sort of innocence to them." Salon STEVE EARLE is a singer-songwriter, actor, activist, and the author of a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, 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. His album entitled I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive was produced by T Bone Burnett. He often tours with his wife, singer-songwriter Allison Moorer. Doghouse Roses Stories By Steve Earle Mariner Books Copyright © 2002 Steve Earle All right reserved. ISBN: 0618219242 Excerpt DOGHOUSE ROSES Pick any means of transportation, public or private, over land, sea, or air. No matter which direction you travel, it takes three hours to get out of L.A. Yeah, I know there are all those folks with a head start for the Grapevine out in Northridge and Tarzana, but hell, to those of us in the trenches, the real Angelenos, those places are only luminescent names on big green signs seemingly suspended in midair above the 101 Freeway. Yeah, yeah, I know all about the good citizens of Encino and Toluca Lake who are always bragging about the convenience of friendly little Burbank Airport, but let"s get real - they"re not going anywhere anyway. I"m talking about the other side of the hill - Downtown, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice, and Silver Lake - the transient heart of the city, the L.A. of Raymond Chandler, Chet Baker, and Tom Waits. A place where folks come to do Great Things - make movies and records, write screenplays and novels, which they hope will become screenplays someday, because that"s where the money is. And every- fucking-body"s got a "treatment" that they"re working on, including half of the L.A.P.D. Most of these folks only wind up as minor characters in the work of the fortunate few. You"ve seen them - aging bit players with tough, brown hides, mummified from years of sitting around motel swimming pools waiting for the phone to ring. The drug-ravaged former rock stars in raggedy-ass Porches and Saabs on an unending orbit of the downtown streets. Even the lucky ones only get as far as the Hollywood Hills or maybe Malibu, where they live out their lives with their backs to the world"s widest and deepest ocean, waiting for wildfire to rain down from the canyons above. And should they decide to get out? Well, like I said, it takes three hours, and most people simply don"t have the resolve. Bobby Charles certainly didn"t. He left L.A. in disgrace, low- riding in the passenger seat of his soon-to-be ex-wife"s BMW. Not that he wanted to go, but this town kicked his ass so thoroughly there was simply no fight left in him. Kim West (she had never taken Bobby"s last name, for professional reasons) had finall