She Played Elvis: A Pilgrimage to Graceland

(Paperback)

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She Played Elvis is the story of a trip that Shady, a young American immigrant to Australia, undertakes with her boyfriend to rediscover her homeland - which, after several years in Australia, doesn't necessarily feel like 'home' anymore. As part of the journey, the pair decide to make a pilgrimage across America, travelling on Greyhound buses, to get to Graceland for the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, with Shady busking and singing Elvis songs at cities and towns along the way. As they travel across America, memories of her past begin to surface and Shady realises that while she is coming to understand the meaning of 'home', she is also untangling the knotted threads of her difficult relationship with her estranged, erratic, unreliable and often violent father. A moving, witty and original meditation on the idea of pilgrimage, family, home and loss, She Played Elvis is a classic road story and a journey of self-discovery set to an Elvis soundtrack.

Author Bio

Shady Cosgrove lives in the Illawarra with her partner, Scott, and teaches creative writing at the University of Wollongong. Her work has appeared in Best Australian Stories 2006, Antipodes, Southerly and Overland.