Elvis Presley was celebrity’s perfect storm. His sole but substantial contribution was talent, a fact Charles L. Ponce de Leon is careful to demonstrate throughout his wonderfully contextual Fortunate Son. Even as the moments of lucidity necessary to exercise that talent grew rarer and rarer, Elvis proved his musical gifts right up to the end of his life. Beyond that, however, he was fortune’s child. Fortunate Son succinctly traces out the larger shifts that repeatedly redefined the cultural landscape during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, using Elvis’s life to present a brief history of American popular culture during these tumultuous decades.

"Charles Ponce de Leon manages in this concise, probing, and extremely readable book on Elvis to accomplish what all historical biographers aspire to: to illuminate the man, the times, and the important relationship between the two. The reader is as fortunate as Elvis."—Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America

"This smart and engaging biography is the first to understand Elvis as a key figure in the history of recent America. Instead of an icon, both worshipped and mocked, Ponce de Leon reveals a man pulled under by the same celebrity culture that had made him."—Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

"A vivid retelling of the Elvis saga, and a deft assessment of its meanings. Ponce de Leon puts all the major themes in play—race, region, class, religion, politics, artistry—and shows how Elvis illuminates the tragic unfolding of celebrity in modern America. Cultural history at its most riveting."—Richard Wightman Fox, author of Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession

"Ponce de Leon's Elvis is compellingly human. He is also a product of history—his own particular history, and the larger history of sweeping change in American society and culture during the decades following World War II. Fortunate Son is sophisticated and beautifully written, a must-read not only for Elvis fans but for anyone interested in twentieth-century American history."—Beth Bailey, author of Sex in the Heartland

"A surprisingly worthwhile addition to the groaning shelf of Elvis books, emphasizing the historical and cultural context for his music and celebrity. Ponce de Leon makes good use of scholarly material, rock criticism and Peter Guralnick's definitive two-volume biography to write a short but cogent analysis of Presley's significance as a musician and a star. He's particularly good on the transformations in American society that enabled 'Elvis the Pelvis,' viewed in the 1950s as a race-mixing, near-juvenile-delinquent-adored by rebellious teens and respected by African-American record buyers, but anathema to conventional adults—to have become by the '70s the epitome of patriotic values, beloved by conservative, white country-music fans. The author of a previous book on celebrity, Ponce de Leon also offers valuable comments about the ways in which Presley's unprecedented fame, which in the late '50s made it impossible for him to appear in public, shaped a weird lifestyle that ultimately contributed to his artistic decline and drug abuse. The story of his career trajectory, from groundbreaking music through mediocre movies to late-life touring, is the same one related in dozens of previous books, but the author retells it well, with respect for his subject and the working-class Southern culture that produced Elvis. He's considerably more sympathetic than many pundits toward the singer's manager, Tom Parker, paying tribute to the Colonel's amazing promotional abilities and acknowledging that his business strategies were in line with Presley's desire for mainstream success. It's a balanced assessment, acknowledging that the precipitous decline in the quality of the movies was Elvis's responsibility as much as Parker's, but also noting that the Colonel's decision to limit record releases to soundtrack albums cut the singer off from his musical inspiration, the source of his self-confidence and 'the wellspring from which everything else had come.' . . . [A] thoughtful synthesis of the most intelligent writing on the Presley phenomenon."—Kirkus Reviews