The thing about Elvis is that, aside from the talent and the looks (and who envies him these?), he stands for America, for its unique mix of homespun modesty and sexual bravado, its spurts of genius and its appalling taste for kitsch, and its unquenchable thirst for redemption.
At least, that's what the best books about him explore. Sure, there are dozens of books by members of his entourage, cashing in on the King's acquaintance, after his habitual generosity died on that toilet with him. And there's shelf-full of memoirs of the I Dated Elvis sort. Two of my favourites in these subgenres are bookends: Elvis and Me, a somewhat self-pitying account by Priscilla Presley of their relationship and marriage, and the more self-aggrandizingly titled Me 'n Elvis, by guitarist and backup singer Charlie Hodge.
Here are the five best:
1. Last Train to Memphis (1994) and Careless Love (1999), by Peter Guralnick
A superb and moving two-volume biography that takes us from Elvis's hardscrabble youth to sudden, hip-shaking superstardom to the long, slow, sad decline. The first volume, which ends with Elvis weeping over the grave of his mother Gladys, is aptly subtitled The Rise of Elvis Presley; the second is just as apt: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. The end, with Elvis too blue to fly, too fat to rock, too sad to live, reads almost like Greek tragedy. The definitive portrait of a man and an era.
2. Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession, by Greil Marcus (1991)
Marcus, one of our most astute and interesting, if sometimes infuriating, cultural critics, here focuses on Elvis's afterlife, the refusal to make his death permanent. Thus, the many supermarket-tabloid sightings, the persistence of Elvis imitators and festivals etc. Elvis, Marcus writes, represents "the necessity existing in every culture to produce a perfect, all-inclusive metaphor for itself." Perhaps even better is a chapter in Marcus's seminal Mystery Train (1975) called Elvis: Presliad, firmly situating its subject in America's iconography.
3. Elvis, by Dave Marsh (1981)
Marsh, one of the most respected writers on pop music, presides over a collection of 200 often rare photos with a fine text that examines Elvis from a number of viewpoints, personal, cultural and musical, and bridges the difference between early "cat" Elvis and later "Vegas" Elvis.
4. Mondo Elvis, edited by Richard Peabody and Lucinda Ebersole (1994)
This collection of 30 stories, poems and excerpts ranges from mocking the Elvis legend to transfiguring it, often, as I wrote when reviewing this book, "exploring the shady terrain between literature and rock 'n' roll." Among the most stellar contributions is one from Laura Kalpakian (an excerpt from Graced Land, with a social worker visiting a client whose home is a shrine to Elvis). In fact, a number of entries probe how women come to know themselves through Elvis.
5. That's Alright, Elvis, by Scotty Moore and James Dickerson (1997)
The best of the Elvis and Me genre. Moore was Elvis's first guitarist (and a damn fine one), beginning in the Sun Records years with Sam Phillips, quitting in 1957, before reuniting for the 1968 "comeback" special. He was as close as Elvis came to a real friend, and unlike the appalling accounts by no fewer than three of Elvis's bodyguards, Moore's contains real affection, alongside his mild bitterness at how little money he made from Elvis's wild ride. (Hello, Colonel Parker.)