Pink Cadillac [Paperback]

Robert Dunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2001

Both a love story and a mystery, this book features a runaway girl, a down-at-its-heels roadhouse, a hot-headed sax player, a tormented record man, a drop-in from Elvis Presley, and a magical car. It is tinged with magic and mojo and goes far behind the music to tell one of the great lost stories of rock 'n' roll.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The idea for Coral Press came when I began to write a novel, Pink Cadillac, set in Memphis in 1955–56, at the time that blues and country music came together to create rock and roll. The writing of Pink Cadillac, a dramatic fable about the creation of and search for a lost 45 record, allowed me to spend years back in that time, inside a magical roadhouse with a swirl of strong characters—and I loved it.

Pink Cadillac turned out well enough that I decided to turn my fictional forays into musical history into a trilogy. The blues scene in Chicago in early 1963 is the backdrop for the second book Cutting Time; Detroit and the Deep South in 1964 informs the third, Soul Cavalcade. What I discovered is that writing about the music I loved, either early rock, electric blues, or mid-’60s soul, allowed me to live imaginatively in that world in a way that augmented my love of the music itself, as well as work with themes of race and musical liberation that ring deep in the American soul.

It was an easy leap to thinking that I could publish Pink Cadillac myself, via the Web initially, in a way that let me do it right, meaning, reaching a special audience interested in music and avoiding the inefficiencies of the traditional book business. I also realized there were other fine books, both out of print and not yet published, that could add to the pleasures of the music by telling stories set around the music itself. Two out-of-print novels are worthy of being back in print: Nighthawk Blues by the author of the definite Elvis biography, Peter Guralnick; and Glimpses by Lewis Shiner, a brilliant fable about a man who goes back to help artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Brian Wilson with legendary unfinished masterworks. More are being written every day.

It’s Coral Press’s belief that a great record always takes us to the singular place and time of its creation, and that it’s a simple jump from listening to the music to desiring to read about that time in a well-told story. Thus Coral Press was born. (The name comes from Buddy Holly’s record label.)

Coral Press will specifically appeal to music lovers who also love to read—and it will be able to reach them directly and in unconventional ways, through ads in music publications, for instance, a presence at large music festivals, and Internet link exchanges as well as Web rings devoted to the music. But because Coral Press intends to publish only top-quality fiction, with strong stories, a vivid sense of place, and solid characters, the appeal to anyone who loves to read novels is clear. World War II buffs would seem to be a good target for a novel set in World War II, but make the book good enough, the characters and story vital and intriguing, and the readership expands exponentially. Same with Coral Press.

Coral Press’s slogan is simple: We Love Rock & Roll. We Love a Good Story. Put the records and the stories together and we don’t just enjoy the music, we live in its world. That’s where Coral Press will take readers: into and beyond the music itself.

From the Author

I direct you to the publisher's comments, but I'd also like to add some thoughts on Pink Cadillac that I had after I finished the book. I was reading a quirky and intriguing book by the rock writer Paul Williams in which he wrote about the Rolling Stones "Now" LP: “[The Stones’] ambition … was to somehow communicate … their vision of this glamorous and mythical place (America, the black South) that they’d encountered via these mysterious records.”

I realized immediately that that was my ambition in Pink Cadillac -- to capture that glamorous and mythical place that rises off the great records of Howling Wolf, Elvis's Sun sessions, Carl Perkins, et al. I only hope I've succeded.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: Coral Press (July 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0970829302
• ISBN-13: 978-0970829306
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,910,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Dunn is a writer, teacher, and musician.

His novels include The Sting Rays, Pink Cadillac (chosen as a Book Sense pick in 2002), Cutting Time: a Novel of the Blues, Soul Cavalcade, and Meet the Annas. An excerpt from Pink Cadillac appeared in The Best in Rock Fiction (Hal Leonard, 2005). Another musical story, Bo Diddley, is in the anthology The Best Underground Fiction (Stolen Time Publishing, 2006).

He has finished a new novel, Look at Flower, to be published in 2011.

For the last years of the writer Bernard Malamud's life, Dunn was his personal assistant.

He's also published widely, including an O. Henry Prize-winning story, as well as fiction in The Atlantic, Redbook, Omni, and numerous literary journals, a poem in The New Yorker, and a front-page essay in the New York Times Book Review. Years ago he worked for The New Yorker magazine, and he taught at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.

For the past 25 years Dunn has taught fiction writing at The New School in New York City. He also works for Sports Illustrated magazine as a copyeditor. As a musician, Dunn is the founder of the musical group Thin Wild Mercury, as well as its guitar player and principal songwriter. The group is on hiatus now, but in the past they've played often around New York City, including regularly at Arlene's Grocery and CB's Gallery.

Dunn is married to a set designer/art director and lives in New York City.

Find out more at www.robertdunn.net, including music tracks and info on new novels.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A GREAT ROCK 'N' ROLL NOVEL! SO WHY AREN'T THERE MORE?, March 7, 2002

By 

Dean Fiora (Hartford, CT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pink Cadillac (Paperback)

I read about 30 books a year and consider "Pink Cadillac" one of the two or three best novels (of any genre) that I've read in the last half-decade.

Author Dunn cuts through the sickeningly-sweet nostalgia to which rock's first decade has been reduced, and paints a warts-and-all portrait of Eisenhower-era Memphis: the racism and segregation, the subjugation of women, the predatory practices of the music business, the even more predatory practices of the ruling class, and--on the positive side--the energy and exuberance that made early rock 'n' roll and those who created it something truly special.

Dunn also does an excellent job of capturing the music historian's obsessive/compulsive thinking and behavior--a frame of mind that has motivated people such as I to spend our lives researching and writing scholarly treatises on what the people who created the music often disdainfully refer to as "those old things."

"Pink Cadillac" grabbed me from its opening paragraph and still hasn't let me go, some 24 hours after I finished it. Even if you don't like '50s rock 'n' roll, it won't keep you from enjoying this book. And for we who love the music of that period, Dunn's novel serves both as a triumph and as a sad reminder that good novels about rock 'n' roll have been few and far between.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Car Dreams are made on: PINK CADILLAC, February 27, 2002

By 

Linda E. Brady "Music journalist, radio host ... (OGDEN, UTAH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pink Cadillac (Paperback)

Robert Dunn has given us a bittersweet story that perfectly captures a time when rhythm and blues was giving birth to rock and roll. A modern day record collector/entrepreneur, grief-sticken by his wife's sudden death, is on a healing quest to find a legendary single. He is convinced that "Pink Cadillac" is the greatest song never heard, a disc that may or may not have been recorded by a rag tag group of musical pioneers in the mid-fifties. Through flashback, the reader discovers the secret of the song, and why its origins have been kept hidden nearly half a century. The colorful characters that populate the story are in and of themselves worth the ride. Thomas "Bearcat" Jackson is a particularly vital and heartbreaking character as penned by Dunn. Bearcat is a brilliant self-taught bluesman and record man, imprisoned and haunted by the Jim Crow era into which he was born. Much to the dismay of his long time musical partners, Bearcat hooks up with two young white kids, creating a new sort of sound with their "Pink Cadillac." But was this magical tune ever actually put to wax? And what dreadful price did Bearcat and his friends pay for daring to make such music together? With "guest stars" such as Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips and Elvis himself (who provided the Cadillac the song is named for), this is a rollicking ride that will be a great read for novices and diehard music fans alike.

2.0 out of 5 stars Pink Cadillac, February 4, 2012

By 

mj - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pink Cadillac (Kindle Edition)

Pink Cadillac
Could not finish.........just could not get into the story. It had a hard time getting off the ground and I lost interest.