What Do You Do When You're Lonesome: The Authorized Biography of Justin Townes Earle

"A superb biography of a singular life."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A Rolling Stone journalist presents the story of the late singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle.

When Justin Townes Earle died of an overdose alone in his Nashville apartment, his death sent waves of grief through the country-Americana music community. The son of alt-country hellraiser Steve Earle had long struggled with mental illness and various addictions. There had been encouraging periods of long-term sobriety and active recovery in his adult life, including the years that led up to his career peak when he released the 2010 masterpiece Harlem River Blues, a career-making album of rambling folk blues set to Southern Gospel.

He sang of cramped Brooklyn apartments and crippling hangovers, about emotional displacement, economic anxiety, and the wandering that characterized his feral, formative years as a rootless kid rambling around Nashville, developing his own unique guitar style and absorbing the musical influences that surrounded him. He was anointed by critics as the next coming of the authentic troubadour. By the time of his death, he'd recorded and released eight albums, creating a striking and original body of work.

Jonathan Bernstein, with the full cooperation of the Justin Townes Earle estate, unravels in these pages a short but incredibly creative life, and reveals the backstories behind Justin's greatest songs ("Mama's Eyes," "White Gardenias") and what happened when it all fell apart while also capturing a shadow world of the neglected children of Nashville legends who wrestle with the legacies of their hard-living, road-weary, often absent parents.

Justin's journey to near-stardom is a harrowing story shot through with moments of clarity and promise, including his marriage to his wife Jenn Marie Earle and the birth of their daughter. But what Earle called "the myth"--the idea that one must suffer for one's art--proved to be too powerful.

This heartbreaking, deeply researched tale is an exemplary music biography.

Author: Jonathan Bernstein
Publisher: Da Capo
Published: 01/13/2026
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780306833274


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 01/01/2026
Kirkus Reviews 11/01/2025
Publishers Weekly 11/17/2025
Library Journal 11/07/2025 pg. 1

About the Author

Jonathan Bernstein is a senior research editor and writer at Rolling Stone, and before that was a freelancer for Oxford American, The Guardian, GQ, Vulture, Pitchfork, The Village Voice, Spin, Entertainment Weekly, and American Songwriter. He lives in Brooklyn.