She Played Elvis

She Played Elvis

'Maybe I've a reason to believe
We all will be recieved
In Graceland'
Paul Simon, Graceland, 1986.

A soulful, hip shaking odyssey from family home to spiritual home via the highways and by ways of obsession, curiosity an acoustic guitar.

She Played Elvis is the true story of a trip that Shady, a young American immigrant to Australia, undertook with her Australian boyfriend to rediscover her homeland- which, after several years in Australia, didn't necessarily feel like 'home' anymore.

They decide to make a pilgrimage across American, via Greyhound bus, to get to Graceland for the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, with Shady busking and singing the Elvis songs of her childhood along with way.

As they travel across the States, 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 journey of self-discovery set to an Elvis soundtrack; a story told with a clear eyed, intelligent, unforgettable grace.

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.

She Played Elvis
Allen and Unwin
Author: Shady Cosgrove
Price: $26.99


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