THE COLONEL

Alanna Nash is a feature writer for the New York Times and Entertainment Weekly, who has written five books, including Elvis Aaron Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafia (“the best Elvis book written to date” – Uncut). She lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

“For all Presley’s talent, The Colonel successfully makes a case that Presley would not have become an icon of American popular culture without Parker’s machinations; he was the key architect of Presley’s career—for both good and bad.”

—Fred Goodman, New York Times

“Ranks alongside Fred Goodman’s The Mansion on the Hill and Frederic Dannen’s Hitmen as a classic of music industry reporting.”

—Billboard

“A commendably temperate and serious treatment of a story that could have tempted a lesser writer to sensationalism. . . . Nash tells in unprecedented and meticulous detail the full story of Parker’s real history and his audacious posing.”

—David Hajdu, New York Review of Books

“Nash doesn’t ask us to forgive Parker, or even like the man, but rather to understand him as a hopeless emotional f**k-up, not the one-dimensional monster most Elvis storytellers resort to. She succeeds, brilliantly. . . . Bloody good read.” Five stars.

—Uncut

“The most incisive and comprehensive look at the life of the elusive Colonel available.”

—Mojo