Singer-songwriter, actor and occasional author Steve Earle has announced that he will write a memoir. Earle wrote a collection of short stories, Doghouse Roses, in 2010, and the Hank Williams-centered novel I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive in 2011.
Earle, who became entangled in drug addiction in the early ’90s and went on to forge a masterful career after getting sober, spoke in detail with Australian website theMusic.com.au about the project.
“It’s the book I swore I would never write – I’m writing a memoir. I made a deal for two books, a memoir and a novel. They made me an offer I couldn’t understand [laughs].”
“It’s not an autobiography, it’s a literary memoir, a little more abstract. It’s not like, ‘I was born a poor black child…’ and it doesn’t try and encompass every minute of my life – I think it’s about something besides me. It’s really about heroes and mentors good and bad, so obviously the first part is about [renowned songwriter and Earle’s mentor] Townes [Van Zandt], before I started making records – the record-making aspect is in other books about me I understand, I’ve never read any of them.
“The second part is about the period of time that everybody thinks they know about but don’t, which is the three-and-a-half or four years just before I sorta slipped off the edge of the earth and the period when I was gone. And the third part of it is basically about recovery – I think it’s going to end long before the present day, we’ll see.”
Earle is currently touring the country, and will co-headline a series of dates with John Hiatt.