Why I wrote a novel featuring Elvis Presley
A long time ago, a young, twenty-something television news reporter toiled away in a magical place called Memphis, Tennessee. One sweltering summer, he had the opportunity to report live during the anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.
It was an extraordinary experience, hobnobbing with celebrities on the front lawn of Graceland. Folks such as Barbara Eden, Mariette Hartley, Carl Perkins, and John Tesh, plus any number of Elvis’ friends and family members.
I was that reporter.
The week I covered Elvis, I received a curious package in the mail at the TV station. Unmarked, no return address, just my name on the envelope. The contents: an audio cassette tape with a homemade recording of an old tune I didn’t recognize upon that first listening. The singer, sounding astonishingly like Elvis, even said some words at the end, the details of which have long ago faded.
The song was Mystery Train and ever since that day I’ve wondered who sent it. Was the King himself sending me a message from the great beyond … address unknown? Over the years, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It sent me on a speculative journey starting with a simple question: “What if?”
What if Elvis had survived the cardiac arrest that claimed his life on August 16, 1977?
Of course, that question leads to many more. What if instead of dying at the young age of 42, he had lived to his 50s, well into the decade of the 1980s? But what if, in surviving, he shunned performing and turned inward, diminished and scandalized by the drip, drip, drip of revelations uncovered by the tabloid press?
What would Elvis do with his time? Would he live in Memphis? Would he consider a comeback? And what if a young reporter crosses paths with Elvis during this time? What if they bond over a common purpose and a shared sorrow, an alliance that exposes them both to the violent wrath of a rogue cop?
These questions are the inspiration behind Last Bridge to Memphis.
While he’s not he main character, Elvis Presley turns out to be the spiritual heart of this story. I believe you’ll find it to be a realistic, compassionate, speculative take, not on Elvis the legend, but on Elvis the man … in the later years he never had.