Late Migrations

Late Migrations

Author: Margaret Renkl

Publisher: Milkweed Editions

Published: 2019-07-09

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 1571319875

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From the New York Times columnist, a portrait of a family and the cycles of joy and grief that mark the natural world: “Has the makings of an American classic.” —Ann Patchett Growing up in Alabama, Margaret Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents—her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father—and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver. And here, braided into the overall narrative, Renkl offers observations on the world surrounding her suburban Nashville home. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. As these two threads haunt and harmonize with each other, Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. For in both worlds—the natural one and our own—“the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin.” Gorgeously illustrated by the author’s brother, Billy Renkl, Late Migrations is an assured and memorable debut. “Magnificent . . . Readers will savor each page and the many gems of wisdom they contain.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)


Last Ride to Graceland

Last Ride to Graceland

Author: Kim Wright

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-05-24

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1501100815

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Recipient of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction Lauded for her “astute and engrossing” (People) writing style imbued with “originality galore” (RT Book Reviews), Kim Wright channels the best of Jennifer Weiner and Sarah Pekkanen in this delightful novel of self-discovery on the open road as one woman sets out for Graceland hoping to answer the question: Is Elvis Presley her father? Blues musician Cory Ainsworth is barely scraping by after her mother’s death when she discovers a priceless piece of rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia hidden away in a shed out back of the family’s coastal South Carolina home: Elvis Presley’s Stutz Blackhawk, its interior a time capsule of the singer’s last day on earth. A backup singer for the King, Cory’s mother Honey was at Graceland the day Elvis died. She quickly returned home to Beaufort and married her high school sweetheart. Yearning to uncover the secrets of her mother’s past—and possibly her own identity—Cory decides to drive the car back to Memphis and turn it over to Elvis’s estate, retracing the exact route her mother took thirty-seven years earlier. As she winds her way through the sprawling deep south with its quaint towns and long stretches of open road, the burning question in Cory’s mind—who is my father?—takes a backseat to the truth she learns about her complicated mother, the minister's daughter who spent a lifetime struggling to conceal the consequences of a single year of rebellion.


Graceland

Graceland

Author: Karal Ann Marling

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 9780674358898

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Describes what Graceland, the home Elvis Presley built in Memphis, tells about the late singer's life and personality.


Losing Graceland

Losing Graceland

Author: Micah Nathan

Publisher: Broadway Books

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0307591352

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Taking a week-long driving job after a failed relationship and his father's sudden death, Ben is shocked when his employer appears to be a still-living Elvis, who needs Ben's help to get to Memphis and search for a missing grandchild. Original.


GraceLand

GraceLand

Author: Chris Abani

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2005-01-26

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 1429929820

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A teenage Elvis impersonator navigates the Lagos ghetto in this “searing chronicle of a young man’s coming of age in Nigeria during the late 1970s” (Publishers Weekly). Elvis Oke dreams of escaping the sprawling, swampy, cacophonous city of Lagos, Nigeria. Beset by poverty, floods, and beatings by his alcoholic father, he ekes out a living by impersonating his famous namesake. But soon he is tempted by a life of crime. Thus begins his odyssey into the dangerous underworld of Lagos, guided by his friend Redemption and accompanied by a restless hybrid of voices including The King of Beggars, Sunday, Innocent and Comfort. Ultimately, young Elvis, drenched in reggae and jazz, and besotted with American film heroes and images, must find his way to a GraceLand of his own. In this lyrical and nuanced debut novel, Nigerian poet Chris Abani shares a remarkable story of a son and his father, and an examination of postcolonial Nigeria where the trappings of American culture reign supreme. “A richly detailed, poignant, and utterly fascinating look into another culture and how it is cross-pollinated by our own. It brings to mind the work of Ha Jin in its power and revelation of the new.” —T. Coraghessan Boyle


Elvis and Ginger

Elvis and Ginger

Author: Ginger Alden

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-08-04

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0425266346

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Elvis Presley’s fiancée and last love tells her story and sets the record straight in this deeply personal memoir that reveals what really happened in the final years of the King of Rock n' Roll. Elvis Presley and Graceland were fixtures in Ginger Alden’s life; after all, she was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. But she had no idea that she would play a part in that enduring legacy. For more than three decades Ginger has held the truth of their relationship close to her heart. Now she shares her unique story… In her own words, Ginger details their whirlwind romance—from first kiss to his stunning proposal of marriage. And for the very first time, she talks about the devastating end of it all and the fifty thousand mourners and reporters who descended on Graceland in 1977, exposing Ginger to the reality of living in the spotlight of a short yet immortal life. Above it all, Ginger rescues Elvis from the hearsay, rumors, and tabloid speculations of his final year by shedding a frank yet personal light on a very public legend. From a unique and intimate perspective, she reveals the man—complicated, romantic, fallible, and human—behind the myth, a superstar worshipped by millions and loved by Ginger Alden. INCLUDES PHOTOS


Elvis, Linda and Me

Elvis, Linda and Me

Author: Jeanne LeMay Dumas

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2007-03

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 1600080367

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This special, limited edition, features 70 Full-Color, Never-Before-Seen Photos from Graceland. Millions of Elvis fans all over the world fantasized what it would have been like to know The King. Jeanne LeMay Dumas lived that dream. As Miss Rhode Island, Jeanne met Miss Tennessee Linda Thompson at the 1972 Miss USA Pageant. Striking up an instant friendship, Jeanne moved to Memphis and lived with Linda. As fate would have it, the two young beauties soon met Elvis Presley, and within a few months, Linda moved into Graceland as Elvis's girlfriend. An unforgettable four-and-half-year odyssey had begun... In Elvis, Linda & Me, Dumas offers an intimate portrait of her relationship with Elvis and Linda, recounting the night Linda met Elvis to their breakup just months before Elvis's death. Jeanne saw it all she toured the country with Elvis, worked as one of his secretaries in the office behind Graceland, and even threw sleepovers at Graceland with Thompson. Elvis, Linda & Me recalls...


Inside Graceland

Inside Graceland

Author: Nancy Rooks

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 9781413454765

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If you wanted a picture of the life of Elvis Presley, who better to paint it for you than someone who worked as his trusted cook and maid at Graceland? Someone whose daily tasks centered around keeping the ́King of Rock & Roll ́ happy, whose every move was designed to please the greatest music legend the entertainment world has ever known. Here is that picture, as painted by Nancy Rooks. Nancy worked for Elvis from 1967 until his untimely death in 1977. Read her stories of what those years were like, of what the routines were at Graceland, and what it meant to be close to Elvis and his family on a daily basis. Read the sad account of her rushing upstairs, after a frantic call from Ginger Alden, and finding him on the bathroom floor. This book presents that picture, one that every Elvis fan will want to see.


Late City

Late City

Author: Robert Olen Butler

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press

Published: 2021-09-07

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 0802158838

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The Pulitzer Prize–winning author shares an “exceptionally nuanced, tender, funny, tragic, and utterly transfixing portrait” of one man’s troubled century (Booklist, starred review). At 115 years old, former newspaperman Sam Cunningham is also the last surviving veteran of World War I. As he prepares to die in a Chicago nursing home, the results of the 2016 presidential election come in—and he finds himself in a wide-ranging conversation with a surprising God. As the two review Sam’s life, the grand epic of the twentieth century comes sharply into focus. Sam grows up in Louisiana under the flawed morality of an abusive father. Eager to escape, Sam enlists in the army while still underage. Though the hardness his father instilled in him helps him make it out of World War I alive, it also prevents him from contending with the emotional wounds of war. Back in the United States, Sam moves to Chicago to begin a career as a newspaperman that will bring him close to the major historical turns of the twentieth century. There he meets his wife and has a son, whose fate counters Sam’s at almost every turn. As he contemplates his relationships—with his parents, his brothers in arms, his wife, his editor, and most importantly, his son—Sam is amazed at what he still has left to learn about himself after all these years.


Running to Graceland

Running to Graceland

Author: John Slayton

Publisher: Wise Ink

Published: 2018-04-23

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9781634891110

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In the summer of '81, Jack has graduated from high school and is headed out on one last road trip with his friends Curtis and Bruce. He can't imagine how out of control things are about to get. When Curtis shoots an old man who catches the boys trespassing, Bruce decides to go home and face the music--but even though Jack knows he may be throwing his life away, he can't bring himself to abandon his best friend. He and Curtis flee north, directionless and hopeless . . . until the ghost of Elvis appears in Jack's dreams, and things take a turn for the bizarre. If the two boys head to Graceland, promises the King, all will be made right for them. And so, in one last quest for salvation, Jack and Curtis turn toward Memphis-- leaving cops, preachers, and all manner of strangeness in their wake.