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Review [published June 1999]
Peter Guralnick: Careless Love: The Unmaking Of Elvis Presley
Gary Marshall
I was five years old when Elvis died and, like most
of my generation, my knowledge of Elvis is derived
largely from muck-raking biographies, shockingly bad
films, sightings documented in supermarket tabloids
and documentaries about brain-damaged Elvis impersonators.
With the exception of U2’s embarrassing
fandom no modern bands list Elvis as an influence and,
for most people under 30, Elvis will forever be the
pathetic figure stalking the stages of Vegas. Careless
Love explains how Elvis got there.
The follow-up to the extraordinary Last Train To
Memphis, Peter Guralnick’s latest book documents
Elvis’ life from his Army days to his death in a Gracelands
bathroom. If anything the book is even better
researched and more detailed than the first instalment
– weighing in at over 600 pages, supplemented by
detailed notes and explanations, Careless Love almost
tells the story in real time.
The unsavoury aspects of Elvis’ life have been
detailed endlessly in biography after biography and,
though Guralnick is no Albert Goldman, he doesn’t
shy away from showing the darker side to his subject.
BUY Peter Guralnick books online from and
What makes Careless Love different is the writer’s
agenda – Guralnick is first and foremost a fan, and the
book is his attempt to show how Elvis’ talent was compromised
by his own self-destructive tendencies and
the ever-growing number of people who felt nothing
but contempt for the man whilst eagerly awaiting the
next hand-out. In this context Elvis’ well-documented
penchant for young girls, his serial infidelity and his
obsessive pill-popping are shown dispassionately, allowing
the reader to develop the picture of a child-like
and desperately insecure man who was encouraged to
do as he wished without complaint or constraint. The
ultimate result of this unbridled and self-destructive
behaviour was a legend who, towards the end of his
career, alternated between impotence and incontinence
and who was frequently so medicated that he could
barely function.
The main achievement of Careless Love is the way
in which it strips away more than 20 years of accumulated
legend to show the man behind the cartoon image,
a story told largely by the people who worked with him
and who inhabited the inner circle of confidantes. The
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