This isn't just another Presley bio, but one of the Penguin Lives, the series that pairs well-known authors and apt iconic subjects. Kentuckian novelist Mason (In Country [1985], Zigzagging down a Wild Trail [2001]), a regional compatriot of the King's, lends her voice to his oft-told tale. Concisely and eloquently, she chronicles Elvis' sad story: humble origins, 1954 breakthrough, adoption by "the Colonel" (manager Tom Parker), early TV appearances, army hitch, the death of his mother, marriage to Priscilla, Hollywood, 1968 "comeback," Las Vegas headliner, prescription drug abuse, meeting with Nixon, and death at 42 in 1977. There is nothing much here that Peter Guralnick in the definitive Last Train to Memphis (1994) and Careless Love (1999) and others haven't already exposed, but Mason's is a sympathetic inspection. She sees Elvis as overcome by the loss of his stillborn twin and battling the inferiority complex of the "white trash" southern outsider. Unlike the rock 'n' roll rebels whose way he paved, Elvis "rebelled against poverty, not affluence. He wanted acceptance, not alienation." --Benjamin Segedin

A noted fiction writer (Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail, 2001, etc.) applies a bracing working-class sensibility and a native understanding of Elvis Presley's southern roots to the familiar tale of his meteoric career. Penguin Lives are not usually based on primary sources, and Mason acknowledges as her main reference Peter Guralnick's definitive two-volume biography (Last Train to Memphis, 1994; Careless Love, 1999). She didn't need to do original research to feel close to the King. Raised on a farm in Kentucky, the author absorbed the same diverse musical influences, from R&B to gospel to opera. "When he emerged with his own startling, idiosyncratic singing style, we recognized its sources," she recalls. "Elvis was great, so familiar--and he was ours!" It wasn't just a musical heritage they shared. Mason, who has written about her own feelings of inferiority as a country girl attending the University of Kentucky in Lexington, nails the opposing drives that sent a polite mama's boy onstage to drive girls wild with his gyrations. "Elvis was born into the mind-set of poverty," she reminds us: "the deference toward authority and the insolent snarl underlying it." This instinctive understanding is particularly helpful in addressing the thorny question of Presley's loyalty to Colonel Parker, whose focus on the fast buck played a major role in his artistic decline. Elvis and his parents knew the Colonel was a con man, Mason believes; they wanted someone unscrupulous to "maneuver among the bankers, lawyers, company executives . . . because they knew the big dudes would just stomp on them." Her take on Presley's drug use as a means of suppressing his insecurities is similarly convincing. Readers looking for evocative descriptions of the King's boundary-smashing music will do better with Greil Marcus's Mystery Train or Dave Marsh's Elvis, but Mason's plain prose and blunt opinions are the perfect vehicles to convey his utterly American life. Although the complexities of Elvis's character and his place in American culture can't be entirely explicated with such brevity, Mason grasps the essentials with perception and passion. Author tour

Award-winning novelist Mason spins a tragic tale of Presley, who tried to fill his role as the great American hero but could never escape his poor Southern background. She covers the familiar terrain of his impoverished youth in Tupelo, MS; his initial success at Sun Records; his rise to fame and army draft; his mother's death and his own early drug experimentation; his 1968 comeback; his sequined Vegas persona; and his increasing loneliness, drug addiction, and premature death in 1977. Throughout, Mason casts Presley as a complex figure, a man who was consumed by low self-esteem and fears but driven to succeed, who symbolized teenage rebellion yet called his mother everyday, and who became the ultimate American icon but could not shed his white-trash roots. Though clearly written and accurate, this addition to the huge Presley bibliography seldom provides any new insights and sometimes embellishes basic facts with overly imaginative conclusions. Part of the "Penguin Lives" series, this slender book will satisfy only the few who have never read much about the King. An optional purchase. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/02.]-Dave Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Written by fellow Southerner Mason (In Country; Clear Springs), this abbreviated biography suffers fromthe series' length limitation but makes up for it by hitting the significant points. Mason credits Elvis with inventing rock and youth culture and "[puncturing] the balloon of 1950s serenity and conformity." She posits that the result of his stint in the army "was to erase his rock-and-roll rebel image and turn him into a mainstream all-American boy next door," and that in 1969, after almost a decade spent making bad films, "he was genuinely invigorated by making good music again." It's when Mason offers her insight into Southern culture that the biography turns superficial, like her attempt to contextualize the bloated figure of the drug-addled singer's late years by noting that "in the deep-fried South, his shape was a familiar sight, typical of his age group." On the other hand, she does intrigue, stating that Elvis "was innocently authentic, but he craved the inauthentic, as country people, who are so close-uncomfortably close-to what is starkly real, often do." Unfortunately, Mason doesn't have the room to explain because she has to get back to zooming through the rest of Elvis's life before her space is up. As such, this intro to Elvis will be useful, but is still no substitute for Peter Guralnick's definitive two-volume biography (Last Train to Memphis, Careless Love), which Mason praises in her acknowledgments along with many other sources. (Dec. 30) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved