“I’m leaning against a cherry-red 1977 Coupe de Ville at a Citgo station in Gulfport, Florida, waiting for the car’s owner to emerge from the attached convenience store.”

Thus begins Tom Piazza’s slim, yet rich time spent with American treasure John Prine.

In 184 pages, Piazza gets to the heart of many things in retelling his painfully brief tenure as authorized Prine biographer before the subject left us in 2020. Piazza only gets about two years of Prine time as a friend, and a couple of winding interviews as enlisted biographer, but a year of John Prine is probably worth at least a hundred at any stock market trading stories and observations.

I think the typical review methodology is to provide readers a few such stories/observations, enough to incite folks to read a book and not enough to give too much away and make reading the book unnecessary. As reading this book seems entirely necessary to me, I’m not providing any stories/observations. Read ’em yourself. You’ll be glad you did.

Besides, it don’t take that long in 184 pages. I do warn you, however. You’ll be thinking about this book and those stories/observations for pretty much the rest of your life.

Worse things could happen.