Book Reviews
- Best books 2003: Portals into other worlds, keen insights into our own
(Nonfiction Item 9)
Mary Ann Gwinn
(manchester news, December 13, 2003)
Here's a fact: Every year sees the publication of more books. And here's an opinion: Every year they get both better and worse. Here at the books department, we sort through a lot of, ah ... dreck, manuscripts that needed far more attention than they got before being bound between two covers. But we discover ever more masterful volumes by authors at the height of their powers. So the search goes on, and this year yielded a sterling set of discoveries. This best-of-2003 list, compiled from suggestions by our reviewers, is generous - 14 fiction titles, 13 nonfiction. (Book critic Michael Upchurch and crime-fiction reviewer Adam Woog present their "best of" picks inside today's section).
"The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley" by Alanna Nash (Simon & Schuster).
Colonel Tom Parker was Elvis' manager and the person most Elvis fans blame for the singer's demise. But Nash's fascinating portrait goes beyond the rest of the Elvis bookshelf, and her meticulous research into Park's dark past is scholarly and revelatory. "The Colonel" reads at times like a murder mystery, and Parker comes across as an Iago-like character, forever doomed to be a villain of Judas proportions. (Charles R. Cross)
- King Con
By Ed Gibbs
(New Idea [Australian ed.], October 25 2003, pp. 31-32)
The Colonel by Alanna Nash, Aurum Press, $49.95
... Now the reasons for [Elvis'] tragic decline, and Parker's typically callous attitude towards it, are revealed in The Colonel, a book that blows the lid off the King's manipulative manager and on the shady past he so desperately tried to conceal. To begin with, Parker was not a colonel at all. He had, in fact, entered the US as an illegal Dutch immigrant in 1929, fleeing his homeland on the very day a young woman living nearby was bludgeoned to death. Whether he did the deed no one can be absolutely sure, but amid a botched police investigation - and new evidence that links him tgo the crime scene - he hightailed it to America all the same. ... Although never charged by police in his native Holland, nor detained by the US authorities, Parker spent his life spinning fictitious stories on his murky post and going to ever-greater lengths to hide any of trace of where he'd come from.
... The shocking new book, published in Australia next month [it's already out], also reveals how an abusive upbringing caused Parker's bullish behaviour, leading him to revel in the humiliation of others. Everyone who encountered the odd-looking character left in fear or hypnotised by his uncanny methods of persuasion. ... But aside from his cunning ways and phony identity ... Parker's real crime in the eyes of many was in his treatment of Elvis.
... But a retribution of sorts did finally come to haunt him when both Elvis' estate and his record label RCA sued Parker for gross mismanagement. The ensuing claims and legal minefield did nothing to dim Parker's steely resolve, but they did crush his ego, particularly as the fans grew to despise the wily old man. When the Las Vegas casino cut his credit line, Parker was relegated to his biggest humiliation: the slot machines. ...
- Biography offers facts and fiction about Elvis's mysterious manager
By Richard P. Carpenter
(Boston Globe, August 28 2003)
Oh, that Colonel. With his shirt sticking out in back and stomach bulging in front, Tom Parker sure looked like a Southern bumpkin. But that cigar-chomping sonofagun was one wily old boy, who could cut quite a deal for his client, one Elvis Presley, and an even better deal for himself. You knew all that. But did you know his name was not Tom Parker? Or that he wasn't from the South, unless you're thinking of the south of Holland? Or that he may have been a killer?
His "entire life was built on lies and fabrications," writes Alanna Nash in a thorough look at the origins, career, and long life of the man who, in managing Presley, became something of a legend himself. "The Colonel" presents tantalizing theories and raises questions well worth asking, even if some of them can never be answered. While the book never shatters the image of a cagey, greedy, and power-obsessed hustler who chose a sure buck over the chance to expand Presley's tremendous talent, this anecdote-rich biography does occasionally shine a softer light on Thomas Andrew Parker.
At least that's the name he went by. He was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in Breda, the Netherlands, in 1909, a fact already known to Elvis aficionados. But Nash, a journalist and the author of two other books related to the King, has unearthed new details about the Colonel's early years, visiting Holland to interview, among others, his sister and niece -- part of the large family that Andre, as he was nicknamed, turned his back on once he came to America. A portrait emerges of a poor, prank-playing youngster who delighted in carnivals and fairs but strived mightily to avoid anything resembling hard work. He had a temper, too, and as a teenager may have murdered a grocer's wife in a fit of rage during a robbery attempt, causing him to slip into the United States illegally in 1929. That would explain the Colonel's passion for secrecy and his refusal to ever leave the United States, perhaps fearing he would never be let back in.
But no matter how precisely the pieces fit, Nash is dealing in speculation. "There is not a shred of evidence to tie Andre van Kuijk to the murder," she acknowledges. It is easier to track Parker's life in the United States as he trod an almost unbelievable path: carnival con man, failed soldier ("Colonel" was an honorary title; Nash says he was discharged from the Army as certifiably psychopathic), glorified dog catcher, razzle-dazzle manager of the world's most famous entertainer, and a sick old man who, before dying in 1997 at age 87, faced $30 million in gambling debts as well as loneliness and legal action over the generous bite he took out of Presley's earnings -- sometimes more than half.
There are plenty of stories about Parker's shenanigans along the way. One of the most famous -- how he sold tickets to see dancing chickens who were actually jumping because of a hidden hot plate -- turns out to be apocryphal, merely an opportunity to regale people and add to the Parker myth. Nash comes up with some people who have genuinely nice things to say about the canny carny but finds plenty who make other kinds of comments.
What she doesn't find is a lot of social interaction between the King and the Colonel. As Parker acknowledged, they never had that kind of relationship. Presley, it seems, sometimes loved the man and sometimes despised him. T here is one touching scene, though, where Elvis, jubilantly heading home after his Army stint, massages the Colonel's bald head and likens him to Andy Devine, the chubby character actor.
Then there are the questions, either raised or implied. Among them:
Would Presley's career have blazed as brightly had there been no Tom Parker to promote him? "The probability," Nash opines, "is that neither man would have been as big in his field without the other, Parker realizing, like P.T. Barnum, that the promotion of a curiosity is just as important as the curiosity itself." What would Presley have become had he eventually shed this manager, who, Nash says, "had a tin ear and cared nothing about music" and didn't know a good movie from the dreck he stuck Presley with for a decade? If Presley had been given material that truly challenged his acting and singing talent, would he have gained a self-respect that might have halted the slide into drugs, obesity, and illness that led to his death at 42? That -- and not whether a Dutchman named Andreas van Kuijk was involved in a long-ago crime -- is the real question.
- Meet the man behind the legend [Book review]
By Stephen Saunders
(Canberra Times, July 16, 2003, Panorama section p. 5a)
Elvis. By Bobbie Ann Mason. Weidenfeld & Nicholson. 200pp. $[A]35.
For earthlings, Peter Guralnick's monumental two-volume biography is the gold standard on Elvis. This abridged Elvis would serve if you only had an hour to explain the Elvis enigma to a Martian. ... [In interview] Mason ... talked about the North-South and city-rural divides that hide within the dream. She articulated overcoming the Southerner's inferiority complex. ... Elvis, on the bottom rungs of society, felt a closer affinity with black people than he did with most whites of a higher status ...The short, sharp thematic chapters are meant to decipher the major progressions in Elvis's life and career, particularly the psychological factors that turned his "American dream" into a nightmare. ...Mason's novel Feather Crowns was triggered by a famous 19th century case of quintuplets in her local region. With that background and acknowledging the literature on the physical and psychological effects of twin-loss, perhaps Elvis's stillborn twin Jesse Garon is made to carry excessive baggage. ... Mason acknowledges that Elvis's destructive behaviour was also the logical outcome of living as a child-adult whose every whim could be accommodated. This stunting of personal and artistic growth is compared with living in an Elvisland, or having an addiction to being Elvis. ... The best achievement of this Elvis book is what you would expect of a gifted writer of fiction. That is, she demonstrates to a fault the grave importance of the ghosts we cannot see - hopes, dreams, fears, fantasies, desires and beliefs in shaping our actual true-life destinies.
- Elvis' Svengali: Biography of Colonel Tom Parker reads like a thriller
[Book review]
By Charles R. Cross
(Seattle Times, July 13, 2003)
If there is one figure in 20th-century show business who was even larger-in-life than Elvis Presley, it was Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker. The Colonel outweighed Elvis by 100 pounds, outlived him by 20 years and out-earned his charge by crafting deals that gave him more than 50 percent of Presley's income. He was hated by fans for pimping his famous client into trashy movies, feared by anyone who did business with him and known for boasting that he had never once had so much as one meal with Elvis. In a nutshell, he hated Elvis, and any Elvis fan hated the Colonel. Parker was a villain of the first order, and his life, as Alanna Nash states in the introduction to her splendid book "The Colonel," was unequivocally "the stuff of Shakespeare."
Yet Parker was colorful. Nash has plenty to work with, retelling the sordid stories of Parker's pre-Elvis years on the carnival circuit. The Colonel bragged of his many cons and spun tales of dancing chickens (aided by hot-plates under their straw) and suckers born every minute. His eventual collision with Elvis seems almost pre-ordained, part of the natural evolution of Parker's cons.
Though the relationship between Elvis and his crooked manager has been examined so many times it is a familiar story, Nash constructs it so well it reads like a freshly conjured thriller. Nash is best when she tackles the psychological roots of Parker's con: As an illegal immigrant the Colonel forever feared deportation, a fact he kept hidden during Presley's life but one that assured Elvis would never tour outside the United States. Nash's telling is the definitive account of Parker's early life in Holland, and though the actual details can never be confirmed, she leaves a reader convinced that Parker was also a murderer. ...
- Elvis biography brings new life to familiar tale
[Book review]
By Richard P. Carpenter
(Boston Globe, January 30, 2003)
Elvis Presley: A Penguin Life. By Bobbie Ann Mason. Viking, 173 pp., $19.95
A quarter-century after his death, Elvis Presley has taken his publishing place among such immortals as St. Augustine, Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, and Abraham Lincoln. Thank Viking books for that. Its current Penguin series presents concise biographies written by authors who have a kind of kinship with their subjects. For ''Elvis Presley: A Penguin Life,'' the publisher chose Bobbie Ann Mason - and it chose well. Mason, the award-winning author of ''In Country'' and ''Clear Springs,'' has this in common with ''the King'': the South. ... Such insights, and the crisp writing, make the book a worthy addition to Elvisiana, but a supplementary addition nonetheless. No one wanting to examine this extraordinary life should stop with Mason's skillful summary, but should go on to Guralnick's two volumes, which Mason gratefully acknowledges as her prime source material. In her book, Mason describes an early Presley concert in Jacksonville, Fla. A county judge had warned him to tone down his act or face arrest, leading the singer to invoke the familiar hysteria by ''quirking his index finger to mimic the Elvis gyration.'' Reading this book is a little like going to that finger-wagging concert. You get a lot out of it, but if you want the whole rocking, shaking show, you've got to read Guralnick.
- The Tao of Elvis
(Book review)
(Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, December 23, 2002)
Rosen, David. New York: Harcourt , Inc. 2002. 200 pp. ISBN: 0156007371. $12.00 USD (PB).
[1] This volume, written by psychiatrist and Jungian analyst David Rosen, is an analysis of Taoist characteristics that the author - clearly an Elvis fan - identifies in the life and wisdom of Elvis Presley. Intended to evoke thoughtful reflection about Taoist qualities for which Elvis was a model, Rosen notes that the volume is "a psychological and philosophical work in that it is about the phenomenon and the experience of Elvis as well as his (and our) pursuit of purpose, spirituality, and wisdom" (xiv).
[2] The format of the book is rather simple, if not repetitive. After a brief introduction, each of the forty-two chapters (one for each of Elvis's years alive) begins with an epigram intended to illustrate that chapter's theme (which include such topics as "love," "virtue," "beauty," and "destiny"). For example, for the chapter titled "Madness and Illness," the quote is from Deng Ming-Dao: "Which is worse? The madness of following Tao or the madness of an existence without awareness?" (141). On the second page of each chapter there are four quotes from various classic Taoist writers and philosophers, followed by a page of quotes by or about Elvis, intended to illustrate parallels between the King and the Tao. On the fourth page of each chapter, the author explains how the theme is illustrated by Elvis's life, deeds, or words. And so it goes for two hundred pages. Epigram, Taoism quotes, Elvis quotes, Rosen analysis.
[3] Interestingly, many of the epigrams at the beginning of the chapters are taken from such decidedly non-Taoist authors as Kahlil Gibran (identified as Elvis's favorite author), but this seems to be in keeping with the somewhat perennialist attitude of the author, who presents Taoism not as if it were a specific religio-philosophical tradition with the same kind of history and particularistic integrity as, say, Christianity or Judaism, but as a universal truth to be found everywhere, and in the face of which all other religious traditions disappear. The clearly Christian (and even purported Jewish) connections to Elvis are glossed over, and even as eminent a Protestant theologian as Paul Tillich is identified simply as "Existential philosopher" (163). The topics of each chapter are vague enough to guarantee that someone, somewhere, said something about Elvis that relates to something said by some Taoist philosopher somewhere. And Rosen's analysis at the end of each chapter only reinforces that ambiguity. Of course Elvis was the perfect example of Taoist principles. How could he not be?
[4] This book is not nearly as effective in illustrating the principles of Taoism as Benjamin Hoff¹s The Tao of Pooh (Penguin Books, 1982), and not nearly as interesting as the myriad of books or chapters on Elvis¹s religious interests or the religious aspects of the Elvis phenomenon (for example, "Dead Elvis as Other Jesus," by Mark Gottdiener, in In Search of Elvis, edited by Vernon Chadwick [Westview Press, 1997]; or "Saint Elvis" in Elvis Culture, by Erika Doss [University of Kansas Press, 1999]). Because of this, it is never clear for whom it is intended. Sincere Elvis fans may find the various quotes from (or about) their King to be inspiring, but many of the more devoted "Elvis as King" variety may be offended by the implication that Elvis was anything other than thoroughly grounded in a Christian world view, interests in Asian philosophy notwithstanding. On the other hand, even they will have to admit that Elvis was quite enticed by non-Christian religious teachings and practices. But no matter; Rosen nowhere suggests that Elvis was particularly interested in Taoism. He is simply making the side-by-side comparison of the teachings of various Taoist masters with the things said by or about Elvis.
[5] There are great books about Taoism and popular culture, and there are great books about Elvis and religion. This one is neither. David Rosen has created a work more devotional than illuminating, more self-involved than probing, and thus less useful than hoped. Almost entirely untheorized, it is of virtually no use as a critical source, and scholars (even scholars specifically interested in the by-products of the cult-of-Elvis phenomenon) likely will find this book disappointing.
Eric Michael Mazur, Department of Religion, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837 U.S.A. (mazur@bucknell.edu)
- Graceland: Going Home with Elvis
(Book review)
(Popular Music and Society, Summer, 1997)
Graceland: Going Home with Elvis. Karal Ann Marling. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. 258 pages. $24.95 cloth.
By by George Plasketes
Nick Tosches is pretty prophetic. Twenty years ago in his book Country: Living Legends and Dying Metaphors in America's Biggest Music, Tosches concluded that "Elvis Presley will never be solved." d Elvis, like Vietnam, JFK, and most recently, O. J. Simpson, represents a cultural touchstone text whose proliferating puzzle pieces remain missing decades after the fact. ... Also emerging alongside the catalog of factual fiction and fictional facts have been more serious critical voices and views, with the works of longtime Elvis observers, cultural critic Greil Marcus (Dead Elvis) and historian Peter Guralnick (Last Train to Memphis), among the more notable and insightful. Marling and Chadwick contribute fresh approaches to examining the polysemous, polymythic Presley text.
Graceland: Going Home with Elvis is not as much a tour or catalog crammed with kitsch, clutter, cliches, and Jungle Room jokes as it is an intimate journey across the miles and meanings surrounding "the material guy's" dream home. The text feels like a travel journal, brimming with reflections, keen observations, and moving anecdotes. Marling's prose is refreshingly novelesque, witty, conversational, and image-laden. The cultural historian's detailed descriptions provide a stunning sense of place--both interior and exterior; a sense of style and stuff--both secret and sacred; and a sense of taste, home, and self. ... Marling and Chadwick are impressive additions to the ranks of Elvis explorers. Though their searches may not uncover any striking new ground, these works are nonetheless important as pieces of the Presley puzzle and continued demonstrations of how Elvis connects all dots and destinations along the American cultural landscape. Both provide valuable new routes across, and views of, the Mystery Terrain, and further establish the richness, the merit, and the fun of the Elvis text.
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