Joseph Coulson is a novelist, poet, playwright, and teacher. His published books include The Vanishing Moon (Book of the Year Award, Gold Medal in Literary Fiction, ForeWord Magazine) and Of Song and Water (finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award).
The Prince of Memphis features an original song, “Midnight Candy,” composed by the song-writing team of Joseph Coulson, Robert Schleeter, and William Relling Jr.
As the story goes, Aron Beale records “Midnight Candy” in 1974 and the song climbs to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
THE PRINCE OF MEMPHIS – A novel
The Prince of Memphis is the story of Aron Beale, a “one-hit wonder” from the mid-seventies who, as fate would have it, stands as the disavowed son of Elvis Presley.
Now, after years of false starts and misgivings, Aron decides to write a memoir that lays claim to his birthright, a book that brings out the lawyers from Elvis Presley Enterprises, religious fanatics ready to defend the sanctity of Elvis Religion, and a young journalist, Odelia Jane Philips, whose interest in Aron’s story sparks both her own writing and their long-shot love affair. We also learn that Aron’s mother, Clara Mae Beale, a Black woman who long ago worked at Manhattan’s Warwick Hotel, slept with Elvis one night in the summer of 1956—a fact that spurs the book’s enemies and a series of death threats that bridge Aron’s past and present.
Whether in Memphis, Las Vegas or Detroit, Aron and Odelia try to outmaneuver the conspirators who seek to bury Aron’s memoir—embarking on a rock-n-roll odyssey into the dark carnival of popular culture, the shadowlands between black and white, and the surreal world of an absent father who is endlessly present.
Early praise for The Prince of Memphis
“Rhinestones, rock-and-roll religion and the American road, Coulson—history, music, culture impresario—re-mixes the dream.” —John Reed, author of A Still Small Voice, Snowball's Chance, and others.