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Joseph Coulson is the author of the new novel The Prince of Memphis. His other books include The Vanishing Moon. He is also a poet, playwright, and musician.
Q: What inspired you to write The Prince of Memphis, and how did you create your character Aron Beale?
A: I wanted a fresh perspective on American pop culture, given that many writers and journalists have examined the topic, and I wanted to deal with the iconography of Elvis Presley in a unique way, as opposed to the well-known facts of the Elvis myth.
I’d also been thinking for a long time that a powerful symbol or mirror of the American experience is the arc of Elvis’s career, which I would sum up like this: an opening shot of musical invention and rebellion supercharged by rags-to-riches fame is eventually held hostage by a carnival grifter and Hollywood corporatization, ending in addiction and loneliness.
Were I to use that arc and make it a central metaphor in my novel—part of my take on pop culture and American culture writ large—then I would need a new point of view for dealing with Elvis.
So the character of Aron Beale began to take shape, first as the disavowed son of Elvis haunted by an absent father who is endlessly present, and then as the child of a Black mother, Clara Mae Beale, to further complicate his identity, and finally as young musician trying to make his way in a world largely determined by Elvis Presley, who Aron knows only as we do—a voice and an image heard and seen from afar.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I read the canon on Elvis Presley, especially Greil Marcus and Peter Guralnick, but I also made several trips to Memphis and made repeated journeys to Sun Records and Graceland (Stax, too, and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel) and hung out in places that I hoped would give me a feel for Memphis as the birthplace of rock-n-roll—a magic that’s still there some evenings if you go to the right bar and try to get back to the streets as they were in the ‘50s or ‘60s.
What surprised even me, a lifelong fan of Elvis and many others from his time, is how much of that Memphis feeling is captured in the music that was made there—it’s an indelible sound, filled with equal measures of joy and pain.
Q: How would you describe the dynamic between your characters Aron and Odelia?
A: Aron is looking for confidence and credibility, perhaps redemption, while Odelia is something of a time traveler, a young woman intrigued by a world she never knew, whose fascination seems to grow deeper as she falls in love with Aron.
They share much in common, but Odelia is sure of herself and direct, at times outrageously candid, so she supports Aron but won’t let him get away with much.
Odelia’s energy and enthusiasm drive Aron’s ambition to finish his book, a memoir, wherein he reveals his identity as the son of Elvis, and Aron depends on Odelia to help him outwit or evade the conspirators that want him to cease and desist in terms of writing.
Odelia, a burgeoning journalist, gains access to Aron’s world and beyond, a treasure trove of surreal experience, but she begins to realize that trying to live in his world comes at too high a price.
Q: You also co-wrote a song that’s featured in the book--can you tell us more about that?
A: Making Aron a musician who might follow in his father’s footsteps meant I needed a song that would be his signature piece, a chart-topping record, say, from 1974, an accomplishment that Aron would never repeat, making him a one-hit wonder.
Before writing the novel, I’d written a song, “Midnight Candy,” with Robert Schleeter and William Relling Jr. We liked it well enough at the time that we even made a demo. Then, when I started writing The Prince of Memphis, I needed a title for Aron’s hit song, and I thought “Midnight Candy” would work well on a variety of different levels.
Later, when I was sending the book around, I would sometimes include the demo with the manuscript, but most publishers either ignored it or pointed out that they were in the business of making books and not records.
Dreamfield Press, on the other hand, liked the song as much as the book, so their enthusiasm opened the door to a full studio treatment of the tune with an amazing roster of musicians and then, finally, a limited pressing of the song on 7” vinyl to accompany the book.
Now, you can read the story of “Midnight Candy” in the novel and then listen to it on vinyl, streaming platforms, or online (josephcoulson.com/midnightcandy).
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m putting together a collection of new and selected poems and also making notes for a fourth novel, a covert love story, which is set during World War II.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Just this—The Prince of Memphis is a serious novel that is also fantastical and fun. It presents Elvis as both an inspirational and tragic figure. And in the same ways that Elvis’s life as an international superstar veered finally toward things unreal and bizarre, so does Aron’s story—offering a mix of dark humor and startling twists and turns.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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