In May 2018, John Prine told Tom Piazza that many of his friends told him he should write a memoir. Prine laughed at the idea, telling Piazza: “’That’s for when you’re almost dead, isn’t it? I’m just getting started. There’s a lot of things I want to do.’”
One of those things includes taking his 1977 Coup de Ville, which had just been delivered to him at his vacation home in Gulfport, Florida, on a little drive over to Sarasota. He asks his new friend, novelist and musician, Piazza, to join him. Earlier that year, in February, Piazza had met up with the singer following a show in New Orleans, Piazza’s home, to propose the idea of writing a profile of the singer for the Oxford American. That article, “Living in the Present with John Prine,” serves as the foundation for Piazza’s affectionate, candid, and vibrant glimpse of a friendship with Prine, Living in the Present with John Prine (Norton, September 9).
Back to the road trip, though. On the night before the two set out, Prine demonstrates his hunger for life quite literally by consuming a huge piece of tiramisu intended for two. He then suggests merrily to Piazza that they take a ride in his new car the next day: “’We oughta take it for a ride tomorrow . . . We’ll go as far as we can get before the engine burns up!’” As it turns out, the car had illegal license plates and there was no seat belt on the passenger seat. What’s more, when Piazza pointed to a car in front of them, Prine laughed and told him, “‘I can’t see that far.’” Piazza uses this episode to frame his narrative: “Yes, I thought—a road trip. Present tense, in the moment, see where it leads. Open the windows and let mortality blow away.”
