Wow! Was I pleasantly surprised. Finally a three-dimensional portrait of an elusive man who spent his life controlling not only the lives of people around him, but his own history. Alanna Nash hit the mother-lode. Her journalistic background, her meticulous research and novelist's skill with words have enabled her to create a fascinating and realistic picture of this man who was behind the scenes of the greatest entertainer of all time. The Colonel, with his personal demons and his professional genius, comes to life in the pages of this hard-to-put-down book. This is indeeed the definitive book about "Colonel Tom Parker." Bravo, Alanna!
Nash is first and foremost a journalist who does her homework. She is also a wonderful writer and a grand storyteller. She worked on this tale for years, traveled thousands of miles and conducted countless interviews to tell the Parker-Presley story, and she's never been better.
Tom Parker was an illegal Dutch immigrant whose real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk. He was a somewhat shadowy figure in his early years, first, in Holland, where his name came up during a homicide investigation, later, after he slipped into the US, as a carnival hustler and a dog-catcher in Florida before fate put him on a collision course with a teenager named Elvis Presley.
The Parker-Presley relationship became legend. As Nash writes, " .. no figure in all of entertainment is more controversial, colorful or larger than life than Tom Parker." Until now, what really transpired during those tumultuous times was hidden largely in rumor, half-truths and outright falsehoods.
Parker's behavior over the years was so controversial it took someone with Nash's journalistic skills to unravel and describe it. If it were fiction, you'd give it short shrift, it's that implausible. But it isn't fiction, (Parker really did take half, perhaps more, of the millions Presley earned,) and it won't let you go, even after you've nothing left to peruse but the Notes and Bibliography.
Don't open THE COLONEL until you have some serious free time. You'll be soon hooked, and this is not a pick it up, put it down, 10-minutes-at-a-time read.
