Elvis and Gladys [Paperback]

The relationship between Gladys Presley and her son Elvis is lovingly detailed in this excellent book. Both people were larger than life and this book explores their profoundly deep kinship, their effect on one another and how he would have to go on without her. Definately worth reading, even if you are not a disciple of the King; by the way, if you're not, why aren't you?

The author, Elaine Dundy, not only tells the story of Elvis and his mother, she traces back several generations into the history and psyche of Elvis' ancestors: the Scotch and Irish who settled the Southeast and tamed the Mississippi Delta. Although she is British, her extensive research and comments about post-Civil War Southern society, customs, lifestyle, and mindsets are dead-on. I grew up in the rural Deep South and many of the influences peculiar to the South that Dundy sites in this book were still a part of my mid-20th century experiences.

The reader closes the book with one thought about Gladys (and Vernon) and that is that these two parents loved their son more than life itself and that they simply did the best they could. They were handicapped from the beginning by poverty, ignorance, and also quite possibly genetic pre-dispositions towards depression, obsessive/compulsive disorders, and addictions. It was not uncommon throughout the 19th century and into the 20th that first cousins would marry and have children. The inter-marriages within the Smith and Presley families were pervasive and no doubt exacerbated genetic tendencies.

Gladys' relationship to Elvis was very close in that she put his needs above everything else in her life. She was the only person who could have ever "saved" Elvis from his excesses. But unfortunately, she succumbed to her own drinking habits early on. Once she was gone, his life spiraled out of control.

Elaine Dundy leaves the question unanswered: If Elvis had such a close relationship with Gladys, why wasn't he ever able to form an equally enduring and intimate relationship with a lover? The answer comes from the reader's personal conclusion that the mother-son relationship was close to the point of crippling to Elvis. Just as he reached young adulthood his fabulous success story began. He was stretching out for independence and Gladys figuartively and literally abandoned him -- through death. Elvis was always able to keep the "enduring" part of a relationship going (i.e. he could never let Priscilla go) but his love affairs seemed to mirror his relationship with Gladys in bizarreness, obsessions, and misery.

And there are many, many books. But this one is truly the best because it is highly focused on the MOST important relationship in Elvis's life. And that begs the question: why did it have to be? Certainly, Dee Stanley is clinically insane, but there is a tiny kernel of truth to her perverse fantasy and that is that not all dysfunctional parenting (and I do hate that term - dysfunctional, but it's late and I'm at a loss for a better term) is not maliciously "abusive" in any way at all. Gladys did what many poor people are forced to do: share uncomfortable and perhaps inappropriate sleeping accomodations with a child long after such conduct should have ceased (and would have, were they not so desperately poor and Gladys so desperately lonesome [and I do not mean that in any kind of sinister sense: just truly non-sexually lonely and alone - Vernon gone so often to Memphis during the War years to get work and so on . . .]). One visit by a social worker (or even a friend) at any time after Elvis was school-age (and then a very young 'tween) would have solved the problem with an explanation of how boys develop a sense of sexual identity during pre-pubescence and puberty would have instantly panicked Gladys into finding an alternative solution to the lack of space and her own sadness in the depths of the darkest nights of their lives. Gladys would never have deliberately harmed Elvis and we all know that. It's just one more instance in Elvis's tormented life where no one cared enough to even make a comment or suggestion. So many times, it was just the two of them, surviving bitter poverty, alone and without a solid support system. Yes, Gladys had many siblings, but she also seemed so very much alone. And Elvis was an only child. They depended on one another for emotional survival in very difficult circumstances. Yes, the many effects of Elvis's impoverished early youth took its toll later in life. No, he couldn't have relations with any woman who had delivered a child. It was not the only scar: as Dundy makes clear, poverty of the type the Presleys endured left so many. People called Vernon terrible names because after spending long stretches of time lifting heavy paint cans all day at work, he finally destroyed his back. Before that, he worked quite hard to try to make ends meet. He had a bad rep in Tupelo because of Parchman Farm and was likely denied legal employment there. So he lit out for Memphis where he found only literally back-breaking labor until he could labor no more. Remember, Vernon did stoop labor in the fields since he was 12. It eventually brought him down. So many people delighted in calling him lazy and worse names, but he certainly tried to be a good man and and a good Daddy to his son. And I am sure his own lonliness caused him to engage in activities that embarrassed or angered Elvis, who was too young to truly understand. But the three of them did love each other and did their best. Under some circumstances, sometimes a family's best just isn't good enough for a child.

And so Elvis washed the pain down with pills and injection vials. And still, the pain of it all returned, always. Dundy's account, so caring as it is, allows one to understand Elvis's inner world of unspoken torment. And he finally died the early death he expected. And the topper is that he left behind an angry, hurting 9-year-old girl who sings today with such rage. And I doubt she really understands why she is so angry. Oh, we do: we know her Daddy left her too early. But she lives life as a "Smith": still, a stranger in her own home town, just like Daddy, and just like Daddy before him. And Gladys added her sadness to Elvis's psychic stew, and he probably passed some of that down the line, too.

Maybe the next generation will be happier, and won't think so much, as Gladys's grandaughter does "about that damn back lawn."

Love and good wishes to all Elvis fans, friends, and family,

RM

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