Customer Reviews

Around Elvis

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I predict that this book will become "Elvis 101" for a generation of fans. What sets this book apart from the rest is that Peters is able to take you on a trip thru Elvis' mindset with great understanding and objectivity. He tells of moments and actions in Elvis' life that are well known to us, yet his analysis makes it seem brand new. This is no flight of fancy book as to who Elvis was or what he would've become. He relates Elvis to his time and place in history and in our culture with exaltation, but not deification and makes himself believable in his assertions with his forthright portrayal of the man. He also has his finger on the pulsebeat of Elvis world today and what he writes about the current handling of Elvis' legacy and of Lisa Marie is fantastic. You'll cheer, you'll laugh, you'll cry and in the end you'll rediscover Elvis through this insightful perspective.

This novel is really something special. It is so warm and personal. A very intimate look into Elvis' heart and soul. I can't say enough good about it. It is not one of those zany books that talk about Elvis being alive or living on another planet and it is not a trash piece. Thorne Peters is obviously secure enough in who he is to embrace the majesty of the greatest of all entertainers. He doesn't use his position as author to try and put himself and his values above Elvis the way Bobbie Ann Mason did in her atrocious book. It isn't some dull statistical picture book or another book by an insider that reads like a daily diary telling worn out stories without perspective. This is the first Elvis book to have a storyline to follow. It actually tells a story about his hometown of Whitehaven and Elvis is the star. But there were all kinds of things going on and there are a lot of stories in this book that have never been told before. This book isn't glossy. He tells it like it is about Elvis in unvarnished detail. But unlike the others he is philosophical enough to tell you why Elvis did the things he did. That's the strength of this book that seperates it from all the others. When he's done Elvis will shine in you eyes like never before. Elvis was a man--a great man. He was not above temptation and petty behavior, but that doesn't mean that he was meanspirited. We shouldn't be angry at him at him because he faltered, we should love him, because he always tried to redeem himself. He was a man that had talent and charisma and a love for life and humanity that led him to sing with all the love in his heart, but he was not the second coming and shouldn't be judged so harshly for having human frailties. This book is a tribute to the love he had for the fans and we have for him.

I just knew that Elvis Presley was a real live flesh and blood human being and this novel proves it. Peters has a rare understanding of the man and his idiosyncrasies that are simplistically profound. For instance, I have read many times of how Elvis would troll around morgues studying the dead, but I never understood that the reason was because he had bonded with death at birth when his twin brother died. This book is filled with logical conclusions as to what drove Elvis rather than superficial assumptions. Peters' intimate writing style sweeps you up and holds you from the first page on. He is fair and forthright when dealing with the controversies and does a bold job of taking the current handlers of the legend to task for their poor treatment of the fans and the King's memory. Great psycho analysis of Elvis and his daughter. For those who feel that they've read it all by now, I urge you to read on, because this is the book that does Elvis justice finally.

I became an Elvis fan in Dec of 1968 and a Thorne Peters fan in December of 2002 when I read his amazing novel CLONED LOVE. I was excited to hear that this fabulous author had written a novel about my favoite entertainer. Peters doesn't disappoint expectations. It's a homey tale of a time and community that has been lost. This will become an even more valuable documentation of Elvis town in Whitehaven TN as the years go by and all who were there to have lived it pass away.

This is not only a great book about Elvis and sociology, but it is an awesome sports book. Thorne Peters will make the Whitehaven High School football team more famous than the Junction Boys. He has a rare ability to get inside his subjects and his characters so that you can see this story unfolding from an eyewitness first person perspective. I agree with the evaluatuion that non Elvis fans will enjoy this book to, because there is really alot going on. Just like in the book WILLIE'S TIME the superstar is at the center of a great story, as lives and the world goes on around him. I will reread this book many times. I think that it is a valuable piece of literature.

There has been a lot of hype about this book throughout Elvis world from some very credible sources, but I was still skeptical that it could live up to the high praise. It exceded my expectations and my hat is off. I didn't think that an outsider, even a fan club president, could write with such intimate detail of the life and times of this vastly complex person who was remote and enigmatic to the people that shared his life daily. What makes this book so very special is the style of the author Thorne Peters. He is primitive in his expression and polished in his approach. He writes passages that will make Elvis fans leap out of their seats and cheer like they were at a concert. He knows how to wring out deep emotionalism without being sappy or maudlin and provides an unvarnished and clear cut picture of what befell him in the end. (It's not what you think.) I can't say if this is the best book ever written about Elvis, because that is subjective. I can say that if you were going to give a book to someone who was not a fan and you wanted them to know Elvis' heart and soul, this would be the best book to give them.

P.S.... Every one of these other reviews to date are correct and look how many different aspects of the book they talk about. I loved the Epilogue chronicling what Elvis world and E.P.E is all about today. Lisa Marie should read the analysis of her in here. It could save her a fortune in psycho therapy.

A great book by a fantastic author who has managed to write a book that I love about one of my least favorite subjects of all: ELVIS PRESLEY. It's not so much Elvis----though he's a big part of it----it's mostly the schlocky merchandising and kooky fans that make Elvis a running joke in sophisticated circles. He looks and sounds better than ever with remixed music and retouched photos, but the print on him has usually been lame. Unless you're a big fan, reading about Elvis walking, talking, singing and chewing bubble gum isn't great literature. Peters writes a great novel about a boy growing up in a small affluent town and dreaming all those Middle American, mid 50s dreams, of a content middle-income life. We love a story about a kid growing up with hometown pride. Of being a star football player on his high school team and dating a cheerleader. Of following in his brother's footsteps as an athlete and a son and trying to wipe them clean. It reads like Harper Lee when talking about southern life in the neighborhood.What makes it interesting is that it all happened around Elvis, but what makes it compelling is the way that Thorne Peters uses this story to illuminate the world of those times.

It is edgy as it tells the story of how these suburban families had to take "white flight" when bussing and blockbusting began in the early 70s. The once quiet community where Graceland is was once patrolled by only 2 squad cars until the early 70s. Now it is smack dab in the middle of the #1 most dangerous part of the country, where kids are killed in the parking lots after football games and fans are robbed and killed in the parking lots of the businesses on Elvis Presley Blvd.

Peters exalts the King but he is credible about it even though he spares no ink putting Elvis in his place on top of the Pop Culture totem pole. I would actually recommend this book to anyone.

I am very impressed by the book and the style is great, but I think that the stories about the teenage high school football players and Elvis' stepbrothers getting high on drugs and driving around town with a keg of beer in the van is a very appropriate story and many will be shocked, like their parents. Something like that should've been dealt with more appropriately and not treated so frivolously. Young people on drugs is a tragedy. The story told about Elvis' neighborhood is rich and Thorne Peters has a real strong understanding of Elvis as a man and an artist as well as a great ability to write. It's very different from the other books about Elvis, I agree, but I don't see the need to draw comparisons. There's no stories about Elvis using drugs or having bathroom problems, only to mention that those stories have been told enough and are just gross. It is very funny and musical. What makes it so good in my opinion is that it is so many different books in one. It doesn't stay with one style or direction, but it stays with the story line from beginning to end. The change of pace keeps it all, fresh and makes it easy to find the parts you really enjoyed so you can reread them.

After thousands of books about Elvis comes the first novel ever written about him. This is a compendium told by the writer thru the eyes and life of another. It is a bold piece of literature that deals with race and society and Peters holds nothing back. Elvis is the foreground but for once the background is as exciting.It is the story of American society and who better to focus on to tell the story of the pop culture evolution of the last 50 years. It has homespun folklore tales and tackles compelling issues about life and Elvis. Peters handles the delicate issues surrounding Elvis with the same frank boldness that he speaks of racial issues and societal problems, but hew does in a scolarly way that leaves no room for objection. His love for Elvis is strong but when he exalts him he has built up the platform realistically so that when he mounts Elvis on the pedestal it is undisputed. It's a book that is easy to relate to, because it is the story of our America. The story of a boy growing up in a modest home, playing football for the hometown team, rivaling his brother and becoming a regular guy in America is the perfect contrast to the story about the world's greatest entertainer living the dream in the big house on the hill around the corner. This story has what the other books about EP lack--heart & soul.

I've read other books by this author, and they're never the same, so I shouldn't have been surprised at his take on Elvis. The book has a richness that has been absent in Elvis literature since the bodyguards book. (...)and the historian books are impersonal . . . the rest have been logbooks by friends and family. This is a complete story line that builds right till the end. Other authors have tried to insert their background throughout their Elvis books and it always reads like digression away from Elvis. Who cares about your Grandma from Budapest or your hot rods or your days as a girl in Kentucky?? Peters is able to tell the story of a regular guy, a neoighbor who grows up around Elvis and it still feels like Elvis' story, because these are his people and this was his world. When the high school wins big games or the character scores a touchdown it's like Elvis winning those games and scoring the points. So suddenly you now have a wealth of fabulous new stories about Elvis because of the amazing tapestry of this novel.