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A review by greyt_things
Elvis and Me: The True Story of the Love Between Priscilla Presley and the King of Rock N' Roll by Priscilla Presley
2.0
Full disclosure: I love Elvis' music and style, I was born on the same day as him, and eloped with my beloved to Las Vegas to get married in an Elvis Chapel.
But holy problematic wowsers. This book is just one long red flag and made for a deeply uncomfortable reading experience.
What Priscilla recounts as a great love story is straight up toxic grooming, manipulation and control, emotional and sometimes physical abuse, with a massive power and age imbalance thrown in for good measure.
I mean, you know from the get-go this is going to be a hot mess at best when their relationship begins when she was a 14 year old school girl, and he a 24 year old global music and movie superstar, #smdh
I started highlighting each dodgy/repugnant/straight up WTactualF moment but gave up when it was basically every damn anecdote.
The book was published in 1986 and I wonder if, with the benefit of our more enlightened times (thank God for the #metoo discourse), if she still sees it this way?
As I read Priscilla's words, I keep thinking about this quote from My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell:
"I can’t lose the thing I’ve held onto for so long, you know?” My face twists up from the pain of pushing it out. “I just really need it to be a love story, you know? I really, really need it to be that.”
“I know,” she says.
“Because if it isn’t a love story, then what is it”? I look to her glassy eyes, her face of wide open empathy. “It’s my life,” I say. “This has been my whole life."
Priscilla ends her memoir on their relationship with this in her epilogue:
"So much has been said and written about Elvis from those who knew him well to those who did not and said they did. I hoped to give a better perception of what he was as a man. Other books have painted a picture rather less than flattering, harboring on weaknesses, eccentricities, violent temper tantrums, perversions, and drug abuse. I wanted to write about love and precious, wonderful moments and ones filled with grief and disappointments, about a man’s triumphs and defeats, much of it with a child-woman at his side, feeling and experiencing his pain and joys as if they were one."
Again, with the benefit of time passed, I'm not sure she achieved what she set out to, though that reference she was a child-woman is at least a start to acknowledge the toxic truth of the situation.
I'm off to take a long shower to clean the ick from this book off me.
But holy problematic wowsers. This book is just one long red flag and made for a deeply uncomfortable reading experience.
What Priscilla recounts as a great love story is straight up toxic grooming, manipulation and control, emotional and sometimes physical abuse, with a massive power and age imbalance thrown in for good measure.
I mean, you know from the get-go this is going to be a hot mess at best when their relationship begins when she was a 14 year old school girl, and he a 24 year old global music and movie superstar, #smdh
I started highlighting each dodgy/repugnant/straight up WTactualF moment but gave up when it was basically every damn anecdote.
The book was published in 1986 and I wonder if, with the benefit of our more enlightened times (thank God for the #metoo discourse), if she still sees it this way?
As I read Priscilla's words, I keep thinking about this quote from My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell:
"I can’t lose the thing I’ve held onto for so long, you know?” My face twists up from the pain of pushing it out. “I just really need it to be a love story, you know? I really, really need it to be that.”
“I know,” she says.
“Because if it isn’t a love story, then what is it”? I look to her glassy eyes, her face of wide open empathy. “It’s my life,” I say. “This has been my whole life."
Priscilla ends her memoir on their relationship with this in her epilogue:
"So much has been said and written about Elvis from those who knew him well to those who did not and said they did. I hoped to give a better perception of what he was as a man. Other books have painted a picture rather less than flattering, harboring on weaknesses, eccentricities, violent temper tantrums, perversions, and drug abuse. I wanted to write about love and precious, wonderful moments and ones filled with grief and disappointments, about a man’s triumphs and defeats, much of it with a child-woman at his side, feeling and experiencing his pain and joys as if they were one."
Again, with the benefit of time passed, I'm not sure she achieved what she set out to, though that reference she was a child-woman is at least a start to acknowledge the toxic truth of the situation.
I'm off to take a long shower to clean the ick from this book off me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Body shaming