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Review: 'Guitar and a Pen' makes authors of country music writers

By William McKeen, Special to the Times
In print: Sunday, July 13, 2008

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A short-story collection is a tough sell, unless you're Ernest Hemingway. (And if you are Ernest Hemingway, stop reading and call Ripley's.)

You need some sort of a gimmick to sell a book of stories. Buyers want tearjerkers, self-helpers and tell-allers in the modern publishing world. The subtlety and grace of a good short story get trampled in this marketplace.

The gimmick in A Guitar and a Pen is a good one: Take great storytellers — the folks who write country songs — and ask them to turn that talent to another form.

It works, mostly. We don't see bylines from Merle Haggard, Harlan Howard or Curly Putnam, so calling it the work of "country music's greatest songwriters" might be a stretch. Still, we have Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson, Janis Ian and many younger lyricists.

These people are pros at telling stories. One of the most endearing things about country music is its reliance on narrative. From the days of Roy Acuff up through the Dixie Chicks' Goodbye Earl era, storytelling is vital to a good country song. Haggard's Mama's Hungry Eyes or the ethereal, ghostly Long Black Veil (the narrator is a corpse) are masterpieces. So why should these skilled artists turn to another medium?

Why not? The world can always use more good stories. And the stories work even without the fiddles and steel guitars.

So we have a quasimemoir from the always-underrated Ian and a tall tale from Charlie Daniels. Auburndale's Bobby Braddock contributes a story, as does Kristofferson, whose film roles — many of them hair-hurtingly bad — might have made the public forget that he is a hugely gifted songwriter.

But the story that stands out, that comes rifling in like an on-the-money-throw from left field, is the story of a suicide bomber, told by singer-songwriter Hal Ketchum. With a sense for brevity and suspense that recalls the short-story master Saki, Ketchum delivers a gut punch with his startling, spare prose.

In the end, A Guitar and a Pen is much more than a gimmick that works. It's a great story collection, and books like this deserve an audience.

William McKeen teaches journalism at the University of Florida.