Joe Nick Patoski draws a portrait of Willie Nelson based on 35 years of
covering his subject. He does an especially good job with Nelson’s early
years, describing the difficulty of breaking into the music
scene. Unfortunately, as the book continues, it often reads as if the journalist has stitched together his
various feature articles, with repetitious information and a sometimes-unclear
time frame. An Epic Life offers
a more thorough portrait of the artist than Nelson’s autobiographical account
from 1988. However, in spite of its 500 pages, Patoski is not consistently
successful at recounting Nelson’s career with the depth it deserves.
