The Prince of Memphis

Description

Aron Beale is the unacknowledged son of Elvis–and a Black mother, Clara Mae Beale–the result of a chance meeting one night at New York’s Warwick Hotel in the summer of ’56. Few know Aron’s secret, and his mid-life plan to publish a revealing memoir brings out lawyers from Graceland, religious fanatics, and death threats aiming to silence him. But his decades old chart-topping song, “Midnight Candy,” catches the ear of a young journalist, Odelia Jane Phillips, triggering an unlikely love affair and a partnership in writing and adventure–a shared mission to confront and expose the conspirators who would bury Aron’s controversial book.

Grounded in pop culture, laced with dark humor, and propelled by musical prose, The Prince of Memphis takes readers on a dreamlike journey–from Detroit to Las Vegas to the Birthplace of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Sparks fly as Aron and Odelia’s romance collides with the magnetic pull of Aron’s past, fueling a remarkable odyssey, a race through the shadowlands bordering black and white, and a reckoning with an absent father who is endlessly present.

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Joseph Coulson
Published: 09/15/2026
Publisher: Dreamfield Press
ISBN: 9781960865441
Pages: 320
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 0.72″ H x 8.50″ L x 5.50″ W

About the Author
Coulson, Joseph: – Joseph Coulson is a novelist, poet, playwright, and musician. His first novel, The Vanishing Moon (2004), published as a Harvest Book from Harcourt and in German and French translations, was selected for the Barnes & Noble Great New Writers series and won the Book of the Year Award, Gold Medal in Literary Fiction, from ForeWord Magazine. His second novel, Of Song and Water (2007), enjoyed both critical and commercial success in France, fueled by an award-winning translation by Judith Roze and reviews in leading publications, including Le Monde. Three books of poetry appeared earlier: The Letting Go, A Measured Silence, and Graph. His stage play, A Saloon at the Edge of the World (co-authored with William Relling Jr.), a noir drama involving a clash between William Faulkner and Raymond Chandler over the screen adaptation of The Big Sleep, received a showcase production in the 1996 TAM Season of New American Plays: “Hollywood and the American Reality.”