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Careless Love

The Unmaking of Elvis Presley

Careless Love Open the full-size image

Contributors

By Peter Guralnick

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Jan 8, 1999
Page Count
784 pages
Publisher
Little, Brown and Company
ISBN-13
9780316332224

Price

$40.00

Price

$50.00 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Hardcover $40.00 $50.00 CAD
  2. ebook $11.99 $15.99 CAD
  3. Audiobook Download (Unabridged)
  4. Trade Paperback $24.99 $30.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around January 8, 1999. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

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Hailed as “a masterwork” by the Wall Street Journal, Careless Loveis the full, true, and mesmerizing story of Elvis Presley’s last two decades, in the long-awaited second volume of Peter Guralnick’s masterful two-part biography.

Last Train to Memphis, the first part of Guralnick’s two-volume life of Elvis Presley, was acclaimed by the New York Times as “a triumph of biographical art.” This concluding volume recounts the second half of Elvis’ life in rich and previously unimagined detail, and confirms Guralnick’s status as one of the great biographers of our time.

Beginning with Presley’s army service in Germany in 1958 and ending with his death in Memphis in 1977, Careless Love chronicles the unravelling of the dream that once shone so brightly, homing in on the complex playing-out of Elvis’ relationship with his Machiavellian manager, Colonel Tom Parker. It’s a breathtaking revelatory drama that for the first time places the events of a too-often mistold tale in a fresh, believable, and understandable context.

Elvis’ changes during these years form a tragic mystery that Careless Love unlocks for the first time. This is the quintessential American story, encompassing elements of race, class, wealth, sex, music, religion, and personal transformation. Written with grace, sensitivity, and passion, Careless Love is a unique contribution to our understanding of American popular culture and the nature of success, giving us true insight at last into one of the most misunderstood public figures of our times.

Winner of the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award
Winner of the Southern Book Critics’ Circle Award for Non-Fiction
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly‘s Best Book of the Year
An Esquire Distinguished Book of the Year
Salon Magazine’s Top Five Non-Fiction Books of the Year
Winner of the 1999 Salon Book Award
People Magazine’s Best Rock And Roll Books
Billboard‘s 100 Greatest Music Books of All Time

Genre:

  • "Riveting...A masterwork."
    Craig Havighurst, Wall Street Journal
  • "Let's get a little loud...Peter Guralnick's two-volume life of Elvis Aron Presley, of which Careless Love is the second installment, is not simply the finest rock-and-roll biography ever written. It must be ranked among the most ambitious and crucial biographical undertakings yet devoted to a major American figure of the second half of the twentieth century."
    Gaerald Marzorati, New York Times Book Review
  • "Nothing written about Elvis Presley comes close to the detail, authority, and uncondescending objectivity that Peter Guralnick has brought to his two-volume biography...Hypnotic."
    Andy Seiler, USA Today
  • “Assiduously researched, meticulously written, and beautifully assembled, equal parts Shakespearean tragedy and psychological mystery.”
    Richard Harrington, Washington Post
  • “Guralnick is one of our best nonfiction writers. He’s also one of our most trustworthy citizens -- inherently, defiantly decent. His voice is plain-spoken but elegant, holy without being holier-than-thou, reverent while recognizing his subject’s intrinsic irreverence.”
    Sarah Vowell, Los Angeles Times
  • “We all know how the story ends, but Guralnick still manages to break our hearts in the telling....Careless Love is the toughest book about Elvis ever written, but it’s also one of the loveliest. It’s fitting that it should end with a gentle sort of keening, like the sustained wail of a fiddle drifting up and out into the night—the only possible ending to one of the saddest stories ever told.”
    Stephanie Zacharek, Newsday
  • “Possibly the greatest biography of an American musician ever penned. For those who never saw Presley perform live, Guralnick offers something just as galvanizing: front row center to a life.”
    Bill Ellis, Memphis Commercial Appeal

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Peter Guralnick

About the Author

Peter Guralnick’s books include the prize-winning two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love; an acclaimed trilogy on American roots music, Feel Like Going Home, Lost Highway, and Sweet Soul Music; the biographical inquiry Searching for Robert Johnson; and Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Guralnick won a Grammy for his liner notes for Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club, wrote and co-produced the documentary Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll, and wrote the scripts for the Grammy-winning documentary Sam Cooke/Legend and Martin Scorsese’s blues documentary Feel Like Going Home. His 2015 book Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll was a finalist for the Plutarch Award for Best Biography of the Year, awarded by the Biographers International Organization. His most recent book is Looking to Get Lost: Adventures in Music and Writing.

 

 

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