Advanced Elvis Course [Paperback]

C. A. Conrad (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2009

Part psychedelic road-trip travelogue, part “Overheard in Graceland,” part mystic-religious devotional, CAConrad's unabated love for the King puts him on a pilgrimage to Memphis; on an Advanced Elvis Course. These bizarre, multifaceted short pieces are an homage bursting with love, oddball white trash, and twisted sincerity.

Using a mélange of breathless energy and flamboyant desire, Conrad ensnares his reader from the first vignette, leaving us no choice but to doggedly follow him around the backwaters of Memphis. Conrad blurs the distinction between real and fictional experience to create a transcendental portrait of the legendary Elvis—the man who changed music and America forever. Through sources as disparate as graffiti, talk-show interviews, phone messages, and poetry, Conrad (whose unfettered energy is about as reality-based as an evening at Graceland) constructs a semimystical collage both celebrating and laughing with the cult of Elvis.

Get ready for a surreal tour of a celebrity-obsessed, picaresque America from one of its most unusual guides. Conrad delights in turning his fantasies into our reality, making this frenetic fictionalized experience “as real as if it were real.”

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press (June 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593762437
• ISBN-13: 978-1593762438
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,544,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique, January 17, 2011

By 

Kenso - See all my reviews

This review is from: Advanced Elvis Course (Paperback)

This book is impossible to put down. CAConrad takes on the most americana laced topic possible, a trip to Graceland. He describes the place, people, tempo, and feel with keen accuracy, never minimizing his poetic voice.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As I said many years ago (counting in Elvis years),, August 2, 2009

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Advanced Elvis Course (Paperback)

Until I read this book I too was afraid of the vibration of Elvis, but C A Conrad is such a good Virgil he makes one feel safe, adored, and capable of feats of great spiritual power.

Advanced ELVIS Course first travels to Graceland and then in a big sweep of daring brings the lessons of Graceland back home, to Philadelphia in this case, a city healed and renewed in that merciful glare.

Meanwhile the car radio soars with the final anthemic choruses of "Now or Never" and "Surrender."

Conrad has an open, Whitmanic optimism and sunniness and he's a sucker for kitsch, again like Whitman, but he's got a sense of humor about it, and all those who cross his path will find themselves laughing their way right through the lower chakras and beyond.

Is his tongue in his cheek? I hope--for the sake of American poetry, for our nation's tremulous soul--not.

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Awful But Disjointed, June 22, 2011

By 

charles (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Advanced Elvis Course (Kindle Edition)

The first third of the book is great. it then promptly devolves into a lengthy diary describing various sexual fantasies. The parts the book began to explore in the first third were essentially abandoned for the sake of masturbation. on the other hand...in that way the book does get at the sexual components of celebrity worship which is part of what makes the book interesting but not awesome.