Elvis Presley's entry into public life came with such force that his story was soon engraved into the cultural cliches that seemed to match it. From his birth in desperate rural poverty, to unprecedented international acclaim and then a slow, seemingly irresistable decline, images of Elvis have suggested an anarchy of possiblities. In this book the author assesses what it means to the culture that produced Elvis, that he has become a force. Here is how the meanings have multiplied since his death; the author illustrates and analyzes how themes of freedom, youth, age, tradition, novelty, guilt and the escape from guilt have been expressed through a phenomenon of such magnitude that it can be seen only in fragments. Greil Marcus is the author of Mystery Train and Lipstick Traces.