From celebrated musician Steve Earle comes a novel imagining the life, addiction, and redemption of Doc Ebersole as he is haunted by his former patient, Hank Williams.

Doc Ebersole lives with the ghost of Hank Williams. Literally.

In 1963, ten years after giving Hank the overdose that killed him, Doc is wracked by addiction. Having lost his licence to practise medicine, he lives in a rented room in the red-light district on the south side of San Antonio, performing abortions and patching up the odd knife or gunshot wound. But when Graciela, a young Mexican immigrant, appears in the neighbourhood in search of Doc's services, miraculous things begin to happen. Everyone she meets is transformed for the better, except, maybe, for Hank's angry ghost - who isn't at all pleased to see Doc doing well. I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is a ballad of regret and redemption, and of the ways in which we remake ourselves and our world through the smallest of miracles.