Crazy Heart

New York, New York, U.S.A.: Bookthrift Co, 1989. Hard Back. Very Good/Very Good. 6 1/2" X 9 1/2. 248 Pages. White boards with silve spine lettering and silver embossed guitar logo on the front. Red endpapers. Very lightly bumped top front corner and there is a one-inch rubbed.spot on the top of the front board that has penetrated the covering.and a quarter inch tear to the dust jacket at the same location. Some wear to dust jacket edges and $15.95 dust jacke price isunclipped. Crazy Heart is the title of one of Bad Blake's songs. It is also the punch line of his story. At 57, Bad Blake is on his last legs. His weight, his ticker, his liver-even his pickup truck-are all giving him trouble. A renowned songwriter and picker who once played with Hank Williams before he became a Nashville star himself, Bad hasn't recorded in five years and his gigs now take him mostly to motels and bowling alleys. Into his world of one more highway, a fresh bottle of bourbon, and another willing female fan walks Ms. Right, her little boy-and, in time, an AA sponsor. Can Bad Blake stop living the life of a country western song and tie a rope around his crazy heart? In his first novel, Thomas Cobb writes about these matters in a poignant, discerning, unsparing way: the life of a honky-tonk artist raised to the level of art. And in Bad Blake he has created a homely figure of tragic stature.