Description
Book SynopsisListening in on public conversation that recreates Elvis after death, Marcus tracks Presley's resurrection. He grafts together snatches of film, music, books, newspapers, photos, posters, and cartoons, and amazes us with what America has been saying as it raises its late kingand also what this obsession with dead Elvis says about America itself.
Trade ReviewMarcus's rapt attention to what Elvis continues to mean is both transmitted and justified in a splendid piece of critical art ... a marvelous and profane book about a cultural symbol of cultural symbol-making. -- David Foster Wallace * Los Angeles Times Book Review *
The evidence Marcus has gathered suggests that Presley's posthumous appeal has to do with our ferocious ambivalence toward him, a blend of worship and revulsion, obeisance and revolutionary desire. Sympathetically despising what Presley became, everyone is now in on--not the joke, but the remaking of their world. -- Eric Lott * The Nation *
Go no further for the biggest thoughts about the biggest ever pop icon. * Glasgow Sunday Herald *
Marcus shows that the rupture that was Elvis in 1954-57 lives on, below and above ground, glowing in grotesque and still dangerous half-life. -- W.T. Lhamon, Jr. * American Quarterly *
Table of ContentsPart 1 Pre-dead Elvis: jungle music - the all-time all-star 1950s rock 'n' roll movie; king death. Part 2 The absence of Elvis: Elvis - the ashtray; duets; tale from the crypt; the myth behind the truth behind the legend; the road away from Graceland; a view of Graceland - the absence of Elvis. Part 3 The return of Elvis Presley: the last breakfast; never bet the devil your head gallery; the king of rhythm and blues; good book on Elvis published - shocking truth revealed; ten years after - death on the installment plan. Part 4 Still dead: the man who wasn't Elvis; emanations, sightings, disappearances, or a seance of 18 mediums; a corpse in your mouth - adventures of a metaphor, or modern cannibalism; still dead - Elvis Presley without music.
