Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive (2012, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company)
256 pages
English language
Published Jan. 5, 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is Steve Earle's first novel, entitled after a Hank Williams song; Earle released an album of the same name, also in 2011. It was published the spring of 2011. The novel is set in San Antonio, Texas in 1963, and tells the story of a defrocked doctor and morphine addict. The doctor makes a living by performing illegal abortions and is haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams, with whom he was traveling when Williams died of an overdose. The novel is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
I listened to the audiobook and loved the feel of the narrative until it introduced a trans character. Unlike the rest of the book, wherein almost every down-and-out person was treated with compassion, there was none in evidence for her. I couldn’t get past that.
