My first love was Elvis and my collection of his biographies was extensive, this is one of the better ones. ( )

Exceedingly well documented and written. A mega star who had incredible talent. It the end, his demons won. Giving away ctars, houses and any big ticket item available, Elvis Presley gifted friends in tandem with the drugs that consumed him, and in the end, led to his death.

Women grew weary of the self obsessed, narcissistic little boy, who like Peter Pan, simply refused to grow up. By the time of his death, he was only 42 years old with a bloated body, a voice that could not deliver, and performances at his shows were mediocre at best.

He was a man who thought and acted like a boy. Always craving an entourage that never left him, none of the people who surrounded him could help his addiction to a plethora of drugs. His autopsy showed an enlarged heart, liver damage as well as a painful bowel condition caused by excess drug usage. At the time of his death, at least 14 different drugs were in his body. The amount of codeine was ten times a normally prescribed level. His addiction to quaaludes brought toxic levels to a body that over abused drugs for many years.

With all abandonment for caution of how mass consumption of long-term usage of unnecessary medications, doctors freely prescribed drugs in mass quantities to the King of Rock and Roll.

No one could stop the train wreck that was Elvis Presley.

Three and 1/2 stars

Great book, great writing, sad life of a great man. ( )

If in Last Train to Memphis Elvis Aron Presley was a shy, quiet kid with diamond-in-the-rough talent, for all appearances he is now a cocky, self-assured music and movie star in Careless Love. All of the makings of a good rock and roll star are there: sex, drugs and money. At this stage of the game Elvis is dating more women than he can keep track of, taking upppers and diet pills to keep up with the party-til-3am lifestyle, and spending boatloads of money all the while. By the time he is in his early 30s he has bought his entourage push carts, motorcycles and horses. "In all he managed to pay out well over $1000,000 in approximately two weeks, an orgy of spending that seemed to momentarily pacify Elvis..." (p 252). His sincerity gets lost in the mayhem and only resurfaces when he remembers his deceased mother. His mother brings out the best in him. Without her, his struggle to know himself is heartbreaking. Yet, what he really does knows is how to work the public, especially the ladies. Guralnick doesn't shy from this fact. He is unflinching in his quest for the truth of the legacy. He captures Presley's demise as the epic tragedy that it was. ( )

This biography takes up basically the second half of Elvis’ life from the time he left the Army around 1958. The author had written the earlier years version also but I had not read it yet. It would certainly have filled in much needed info as at this point his mother had passed on and was under the management of the colonel all ready. Elvis is shown here as the great talent surrounded my many that would be there for him but also serve as enablers and dependents on his fame and wealth. The drug use starts early and as typical of that time in the form of pep pills that were so common and seen as the wonder energy drug. From there it was Elvis who made it his lifestyle and ultimate demise as his own research into all that came available he had determined would be necessary for himself to function with no downside. Though it was not covered in detail his sources mostly doctors were not seen as culpable in what eventually went down.

His relationship with Priscilla but many of the other women in his life would seem to mirror his obsession with the closeness with his mother. A strange relationship that could never really be workable with what the women wanted out of the relationship. As his fame moves forward and eventually declines so does Elvis and the pill addiction takes over and is painful to watch how it totally unravels him. The money he and the colonel went through is staggering and reflects how extreme fame not balanced well warps the all areas of his life.

The last years were difficult to witness, as he simply is not able to deliver on stage yet the fans keep coming to make the endless treadmill he finds himself on. At just like that it is over. The book ends with the funeral itself and I felt it would have been good to have more of the aftermath and the effects on the people that surrounded him. Ironically I got the feeling that he would have lived longer as a simple truck driver as he started out and maybe happier. Ultimately, though one could make a case for those enabling his behavior, it was Elvis who was responsible and he alone that brought it all crashing down. It almost seemed the expectation was that this was the only outcome available to him and he may have been relieved it was finally over.