Advanced Elvis Course

(Paperback)

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Part psychedelic road-trip travelogue, part "Overheard in Graceland," part mystic-religious devotional, CAConrad's unabated love for the King puts him on a pilgrimage to Memphis; on an Advanced Elvis Course. These bizarre, multifaceted short pieces are an homage bursting with love, oddball white trash, and twisted sincerity. Using a melange of breathless energy and flamboyant desire, Conrad ensnares his reader from the first vignette, leaving us no choice but to doggedly follow him around the backwaters of Memphis. Conrad blurs the distinction between real and fictional experience to create a transcendental portrait of the legendary Elvis--the man who changed music and America forever. Through sources as disparate as graffiti, talk-show interviews, phone messages, and poetry, Conrad (whose unfettered energy is about as reality-based as an evening at Graceland) constructs a semimystical collage both celebrating and laughing with the cult of Elvis. Get ready for a surreal tour of a celebrity-obsessed, picaresque America from one of its most unusual guides. Conrad delights in turning his fantasies into our reality, making this frenetic fictionalized experience "as real as if it were real."

Author Bio

CAConrad is the author of nine books of poetry and essays, including their latest book JUPITER ALIGNMENT- (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals and While Standing in Line for Death, which won a Lambda Book Award. A documentary about their work, The Book of Conrad, is viewable online on their website. CAConrad has also received a 2019 Creative Capital grant as well as a Pew Fellowships in the Arts, a Believer Magazine Book Award, and a Gil Ott Book Award. They regularly teach at Columbia University in New York City, and at Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam.