Living in the Present with John Prine
16 September 2025
Territory Rights — Worldwide including Canada, Singapore and Malaysia, but excluding the British Commonwealth.
Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A vivid, joyful, moving window onto the life and heart of an American icon.
In the spring of 2018, Tom Piazza climbed into a 1977 Coupe de Ville with the great singer-songwriter John Prine to write an article for the Oxford American. Their Florida road trip ignited a deep friendship, full of tall tales over epic meals, long nights playing guitar and trading songs, and visits back and forth between their homes in Nashville and New Orleans. Along the way, Prine invited Piazza to work with him on a memoir, with John telling sprawling, often hilarious stories of his youth and family in Chicago and Kentucky, his breakthrough into the national spotlight, his riotous early years in the Nashville country scene, and much more. When Prine died suddenly of COVID in April 2020, that unfinished memoir evolved into an intimate and very personal narrative of the artist’s final years. In it, Piazza offers fans an unforgettable portrait of the beloved musician in his late glory—as a boyish cut-up, an epic raconteur, a great American poet, and, most important, a beloved friend.
Reviews
"Piazza has written a different kind of reflection on Prine’s life and legacy, weaving elements of biography, travelogue and music criticism with the grief of a bereft friend, in this slim hybrid volume." — Colin Dwyer, NPR
"Living in the Present with John Prine is a deeply intimate, moving, superbly written account of the last two years of a great artist’s life. It covers a narrow window of time in John’s life, but a huge expanse of feeling and memory. I loved being with John and Tom Piazza, sitting in the back seat of that cherry red Coupe de Ville as they careened across a Florida bridge, or curled up in a dark corner of Sperry’s restaurant in Nashville, telling stories. Artists exist and resonate outside linear time, and I really did not want this book to end." — Rosanne Cash
"For all of us who love and dearly miss John Prine, what a gift it is to be able to be with him again, both through his own words and in Tom Piazza’s wonderful recounting of their adventures forging their deep, late-life friendship. Tom is such an insightful, eloquent writer and many thanks to him for giving us another round with our dear friend." — Bonnie Raitt
"Tom Piazza's book is a beautiful buddy movie — two old guys at the top of their games, bantering, playing music, and co-writing a never-to-be-finished memoir that becomes something no less precious, a quietly radiant story about the saving grace of fellowship, family, and art." — Will Hermes, author of Lou Reed: The King of New York
"The artist’s good humor and low-key grace shine through on every page. A heartfelt blend of first-person journalism, oral history, travelogue, and elegy." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"There will never be a memoir by the great John Prine …Living in the Present with John Prine … is the next best thing. … For anyone who has looked up at the stage and wondered whether Prine—cowboy boot tapping, smile askew—was having as much fun as he seemed to be, Living in the Present with John Prine offers an opportunity to catch a few more moments of that sublime joy." — BookPage (starred review)
"Piazza is a wonderful writer and a great humanist, the ideal combination for writing about one of music’s sublime observers of the human condition. . . . [T]his is an absolute gem, a lovely homage to friendship and grief and a potent reminder of what the musical community and the world lost." — June Sawyers, Booklist (starred review)
"[A] dazzling tribute.... Prine fans will be over the moon." — Publishers Weekly
Standalone Ebook
9781324050865
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