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Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession (Paperback)

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3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this consistently amazing analysis, Marcus proposes that rock king Elvis Presley (1935-1977) has been more important dead than alive and in the process makes readers care about far more cultural trivia than they might have thought possible. A philosopher and critic with a novelist's passion and creativity (his Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century was dauntingly dense but compelling), Marcus writes with flash and style. Scanning the American scene, he finds Elvis omnipresent, from the cult TV show Twin Peaks (he killed Laura Palmer) to the star's life, which to many embodied the American dream. While the premise may seem far-fetched, Marcus's assessment of the American psyche and the 60 disturbing illustrations, including the cover of the album Disgraceland by the rock group Elvis Hitler, bear him out. Perhaps "nothing but a hound dog" in life, in memory Elvis proves very much more. 40,000 first printing; author tour; first serial to Interview.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Probing--at times beyond the pale--ponderings on Elvis as the ultimate American icon. Fourteen years dead, Elvis lives on--at least in the exuberant critical imagination of Marcus (Lipstick Traces, 1989; Mystery Train, 1975), who in this intemperate but dazzling hodgepodge of essays and commentaries (some seen in earlier form in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, etc.) finds the singer to be nothing less than an example of ``the necessity existing in every culture to produce a perfect, all-inclusive metaphor for itself.'' This claim and others (e.g., that Elvis ``signified'' an ``unfathomable multiplicity''; that, like Moby-Dick and Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, one of Elvis's TV spots offered ``a fantasy of what the deepest and most extreme possibilities and dangers of our national identity are'') at first seem the wispiest flights of fancy--but they gain flesh as Marcus nourishes them with an astonishing array of testimony to Elvis's stature as an American legend. It's not only the bestselling Elvis books the author critiques; the media's Elvismania he despairs of; the Elvis imitators and fans he marvels at (with a knowing appreciation of their religious fervor: ``The identification of Elvis with Jesus has been a secret theme...at least since 1956''); above all, it's the hundreds of posthumous Elvis-references he nets from the American cultural jungles and here pins to the page like so many butterflies. Culled from comic- strips, street-rumors, posters, record art, song lyrics, tabloid headlines, novels, interviews, public addresses, etc., they give some backbone at least to Marcus's overarching claim ``that `So much for Elvis Presley' is a sentence no serious person has yet been able to write with a straight face.'' With 50 b&w and 10 color illustrations syncopated throughout the text (which itself features numerous typefaces), it's a graphically as well as intellectually stimulating foray into the farthest reaches of Elvisdom. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 15, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674194225
ISBN-13: 978-0674194229
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,271,170 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Look Inside This Book

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover

Citations (learn more)

79 books cite this book:

Images of Elvis Presley in American Culture, 1977-1997: The Mystery Terrain by Frank Hoffmann on 7 pages
Images of Elvis Presley in American Culture, 1977-1997: The Mystery Terrain by Frank Hoffmann on 7 pages
In Search Of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion by International Conference on Elvis Presley 1995 University of Mississippi on 7 pages
Pandora's Handbag: Adventures in the Book World (Five Star Paperback) by Elizabeth Young on page 51, page 52, and page 196
Fan Cultures (Sussex Studies in Culture and Communication) by Matthew Hills on page 140, page 161, and Back Matter

See all 79 books citing this book

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	88% buy the item featured on this page: Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession 3.0 out of 5 stars (3) $16.15
	12% buy Elvis Religion: The Cult of the King

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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best cultural criticism on Elvis ever. End of story, October 27, 1999

By A Customer

Greil Marcus's collection of randow essays and pieces is still more cohesive, fascinating, intelligent and amazing that most books written on Elvis Presley. Quite simply, Marcus is one of the best writers operating today. When writing about EP, most cultural critics don't have the musical background, and most biographers (save Peter Guralnick & Dave Marsh) don't have the philosophical insight. Marcus does and he isn't afraid to flex his intellectual muscle and still be funny and accessible. If you could only own 2 books on Elvis Presley, it would be this and Peter Guralnick's "Last Train To Memphis."

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3.0 out of 5 stars somewhere in the middle --, October 24, 2005

By	N. Jackson - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I found this book engaging enough. It is not an Elvis biography, more a commentary on pop culture and perception. Marcus is a solid writer and his points are well-founded, especially the chapter in which he deconstructs Goldman's scathing bio 'Elvis'. As another reviewer has suggested, you will need to know some about Elvis' story before you get your head around everything in this book. Having said that, it's not as grave as that reviewer made it out to be. I don't consider myself an Elvis follower by any stretch and I didn't feel out of place understanding what Marcus was conveying. A solid, quick read that even the most casual of Elvis fans will enjoy.

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5 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars absolutely impenetrable, June 9, 2002

By	Nysocboy (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

I have a Ph.D., and most of the time I had no idea what Marcus was talking about. Not because of the academic jargon -- there is little or none. Because he kept dropping in names of obscure punk rock groups or fan mags or ezines and expecting me to know all about them, he kept starting discussions in the middle, and most infuriating, he assumed that readers positively worshipped Elvis, so if he alluded to what happened in Tupelo in 1957, or Elvis' relationship with his cousins, we would nod and say "oh, sure." Casual readers, beware -- in order to understand this book, you need to have read at least a dozen biographies of Elvis, watch all of his movies a dozen times, and have every word of every song he ever wrote memorized. I conclude that it's not a cultural obsession at all, to anyone but the author.

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