Crowell is among the best storytellers to emerge from Nashville. Up to now, he told
his stories in song, but with this heartfelt memoir, he can now be called a writer
of the first order. Houston, where Crowell grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s, was
a city full of characters found in stereotypical country songs: hard-drinking fathers
and long-suffering mothers singing along to the beer-soaked ballads of Hank Williams.
But this is not fiction; Crowell actually lived the life, soaking up its exhilarating
and disturbing atmosphere. Crowell is unsparingly honest, yet there is an admirable
restraint here, too. He clearly loves his family, accepting their bountiful
deficiencies even when he criticizes them or wishes them harm. He can now see the kind
of lives his parents wanted to live, and how they fell woefully short. He calls his
father an enigma and savant; he admires his mother, who suffered from double dyslexia
and epilepsy, for her towering instinct for survival. But he also discusses lighter
topics, such as his early days in a rock .n. roll band, making for an exceptional memoir.

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