At the age of fifty-seven, Bad Blake is on his last legs. His weight, his ticker, his liver, even his pick-up truck are all giving him trouble. A renowned songwriter and "picker" who hasn't recorded in five years, Bad now travels the countryside on gigs that take him mostly to motels and bowling alleys. Enter Ms. Right. Can Bad stop living the life of a country-western song and tie a rope around his crazy heart?
From Library Journal
Singer and guitarist Bad Blake was once a first-rate country-and-western star, but now he's 57, an alcoholic, a failure at four marriages, and playing in third-rate clubs. The biggest gig he can get is opening for Tommy Sweet, the kid Bad got started and whose career has now eclipsed Bad's. Bad meets Jean Craddock when she comes to interview him and they fall in love. Her little boy, Buddy, inspires Bad to search for his own long-lost son, but there's no happy ending there. And when Bad, hungry for a drink, loses Jean's son, things take a downturn, despite Bad's fling with AA. This first novel has the authentic patter and ambience of those seedy one-night-stands, but the plot is thin and the ending is very downbeat. There will be heavy promotion and advertising, so requests may warrant purchase. Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Lib., Seaside, Cal.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“You can almost hear the whining twang of a pedal steel guitar and the droning of a mournful singer while reading Crazy Heart.” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram )
“Crazy Heart is a beautiful book….The characters are cut cleanly out of America….Bad Blake is a man you will not soon forget.” (Washington Times )
“In producing as nearly a masterpiece as the subject has yet attracted, Cobb seems to have triumphed….Cobb has created an unforgettable character who engages not only your interest but your emotion…and who proceeds to take you on a roller-coaster ride through his tawdrily tumultuous life.” (Chicago Tribune )
“[Cobb’s] picture of the scraggly underside of Western music is brutally convincing.” (The New Yorker )
“Thomas Cobb’s marvelous first novel doesn’t just play on your heartstrings, it breaks them.” (San Francisco Examiner )
“This is a heartfelt book: the descriptions of writing songs and playing them, of finding love and ruining it, of sweet, painful memories. There’s nothing startling in the plot or the characters, but they are alive.” (Houston Chronicle )
“Crazy Heart just might be the finest country-western novel ever written, bar none.” (Houston Post )
“Blake’s dedication to, and integrity towards, his country music is more than matched by Cobb’s moving, respectful evocation of the world of country music, and the life and times of Bad Blake.” (Boston Herald )
“Thomas Cobb has produced a piercing, keenly observed chronicle of modern Americana, getting across the current mores and attitudes as experience by C&W musician Blake.” (Los Angeles Times )
“Thomas Cobb has written a bitter, witty psychological profile of an aging genius that is also a wonderful celebration of country music. Bad Blake lives at the poor end of the rainbow, but you’ll never forget him. Crazy Heart is a splendid achievement.” (Donald Barthelme )
“A measure of Thomas Cobb’s talent is that he can make Bad Blake’s story amusing even as we watch him fall. Bad is entirely sympathetic, and this crazy heart is vivid; the milieu is as resonant as a steel guitar, and the plot moves along without skipping a beat.” (New York Times Book Review )