Everything Steve Earle does is done with intelligence, creativity, passion and integrity. In music these strengths have earned him many accolades and his devotees speak of him in reverential tones. Singer, songwriter, producer, social activist, teacher and now author, he is someone to believe in. Doghouse Roses gives us another reason to believe. These stories reflect the many facets of the man and the hard-fought struggles, defeats and eventual triumphs he has experienced in a career spanning three decades. The title story is a gut-wrenching portrait of a nearly-famous singer whose life and sould 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 in some ways can be seen as Earle's alter ego, the person he might have become had he been drafted. Earle is a songwriter's songwriter and here he takes his writing gift into another medium with all the grace, poetry and emotion that has made his music honoured around the world.