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“Remarkably, Mr.
Guralnick neither moralizes about Elvis’ actions nor opines about his place in
history…The result: a crystalline focus on the man and his music that offers up
Elvis’ life as a sort of Rorschach test for the late twentieth century…Together
the two volumes make up a 1,100-page masterwork—a streamlined and riveting
narrative tracing the rise and fall of arguably the most important entertainer
of the century.”
— Wall Street Journal
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“Careless Love,
a chronicle of shadows and sadness, is no sentimental epitaph. It is the fine
and careful measure of a pilgrim traveler…in Guralnick’s thorough and
compassionate telling.”
— Time
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“We all know how the
story ends, but Guralnick still manages to break our hearts in the telling…Careless
Love is the toughest book about Elvis ever written, but it’s also one of
the loveliest…One of the saddest stories ever told.”
— Newsday
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“With the intense and
objective eye of a master biographer…Guralnick takes the reader into the
underlying issues of class, race, and the American desire to transform who we
are into something better…Monumental.”
— Chicago Tribune
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“Guralnick has done a
masterful job of synthesizing information into a nuanced, deftly paced narrative.
He brings long-overdue subtlety and insight to one of the most over-scrutinized
characters in American popular culture.”
— Philadelphia Inquirer
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“The great triumph of
Careless Loveis that it celebrates, amid an unflinching
portrait of personal and creative deterioration, the immutable innocence of
Elvis’ aspiration.”
— Boston Globe
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“Careless Love
restores the flesh to Elvis’ beleaguered bones…Guralnick writes with such
profound sympathy for his subject that Elvis’ fate, though excruciating to read
about, isn’t shocking as it was, for example, in Albert Goldman’s
loathsome 1981 biography…Guralnick, working with the same basic material, shows
us a terribly unhappy and frustrated man. I know which version I believe.”
— GQ
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“Mr. Guralnick’s book
is a labor of love and of profound respect. What’s remarkable is how he manages
to be simultaneously compassionate and dispassionate, truthful, unflinching,
and nonjudgmental. His (all too rare) refusal to criticize, second-guess, or
gloat…lends the entire enterprise an aura of capaciousness, generosity, and
even transcendence…Everything in the biography strikes you as fitting
seamlessly together…Mr. Guralnick’s book enlarges your imagination for the
extremes and marvels, the highs and lows that can occur within a single
lifetime.”
— New York Observer
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“Tracing what seems a grand and irrevocable arc
through an American life that finally became an American tragedy, Peter
Guralnick has produced the second half of his colossal biography of Elvis Presley…Depressing
as the story is, Guralnick’s approach redeems Elvis as a human, not a myth or a
punch line, and calmly, methodically makes coherent what often has been
obscured by the almost X-Files level
of paranoid fantasy associated with the King’s final years.”
— Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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“A brilliant, beautifully written biography…With
sentences built simply and carefully, yet containing ideas that are intense and
true…Guralnick has created a masterpiece.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer
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“Essential reading not only for fans…but for
anyone curious about the process and price of fame in America.”
— Tampa Tribune
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“[A] definitive and
scrupulous biography…As in volume one, Last Train to Memphis, Guralnick
makes his points here through the selection and accretion of detail…The
integrity of this approach is admirable. Many writers have made Presley the
vehicle for their own ideas; Guralnick gives us a fallible human being
destroyed by forces within as well as without. It’s an epic American tragedy,
captured here in all its complexity.”
— Publishers Weekly
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“Picking up where he
left off in volume one, Guralnick captures it all…This is clearly the
definitive account of Elvis Presley, no more lurid than it has to be. The
author’s thoroughness is matched by his balance. It is obvious Guralnick has a
deep admiration for Elvis’ contributions as an artist, but he does not overlook
or excuse the star’s many flaws. An indispensable account.”
— Booklist
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“This sequel to
Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis, completing his intensive biography of
Elvis Presley, does not disappoint…The breadth of Guralnick’s research is
nothing short of amazing, and his lyrical narrative presents an empathetic
portrait of a man struggling with drugs, sex, family, personal eccentricities,
money, and the delicate web of relationships surrounding any famous figure. Elvis’
manager Colonel Tom Parker, wife Priscilla, father Vernon, and a host of close
associates are portrayed with candor and insight. Details about everything from
recording sessions to private conversations make this work hard to resist for
die-hard Elvis fans as well as casual admirers. Guralnick’s honesty and skill
make this tale all the more disturbing, peeling away the romantic image of a
fine talent to reveal a deeply troubled man.”
— Library Journal
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“Guralnick concludes
his majestic two-volume biography of Elvis Presley with copious evidence of
Elvis’ creative and personal plunge…This sequel to his exhilarating first
volume is the most meticulously researched and sympathetic, honest portrait of
Elvis we are likely to see.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“Careless Love continues
to show that Guralnick ‘gets’ what Presley was trying to do as an artist.”
— Amazon.com, editorial review
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Riveting...A masterwork.
— Wall Street Journal
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Let's get a little loud...Peter Guralnick's two-volume life of Elvis Aron Presley, of which Careless Love is the second installment, is not simply the finest rock-and-roll biography ever written. It must be ranked among the most ambitious and crucial biographical undertakings yet devoted to a major American figure of the second half of the twentieth century.
— Gaerald Marzorati, New York Times Book Review
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Nothing written about Elvis Presley comes close to the detail, authority, and uncondescending objectivity that Peter Guralnick has brought to his two-volume biography...Hypnotic.
— Andy Seiler, USA Today