Graced Land

by Laura Kalpakian

Overview

"Sacred to the Memory of Elvis," proclaims a homely, front porch memorial in a shabby neighborhood. Even years after his death, Joyce Jackson keeps the Christmas lights twinkling, and the flowers fresh. She keeps the faith as she builds a life for her two daughters, Priscilla and Lisa Marie. Joyce's benevolence is inspired by Elvis, but her vision is entirely her own. Her generosity of spirit resonates among a cast of memorable characters: holy rollers, rock and rollers, cops and robbers, refugees and social workers-one of whom inadvertently reawakens Joyce's old nemesis.

Marge Mason believes that Joyce is a welfare cheat with bad taste in men and music and too much spunk for a woman on public assistance. In this contest, Joyce will need every bit of her strength and spiritual largesse.

Rippling with rhythm and the blues, Graced Land celebrates the power of music and love connecting the iconic King with a struggling single mother.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780997210293
Publisher:	Paint Creek Press
Publication date:	06/28/2022
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Laura Kalpakian is the internationally published author of twenty works of fiction, some under names other than her own. She has also published four collections of short fiction. In 2021 first nonfiction books appeared. Memory Into Memoir: a Handbook for Writers (University of New Mexico Press) guides writers toward wrestling the unruly past to the page. The Unruly Past, published by Paint Creek Press tackles Kalpakian's own unruly past and the divergent cultures within her family. Paint Creek Press has also reissued her seminal novel, These Latter Days and the award-winning Dark Continent and Other Stories. Kalpakian's novel American Cookery was nominated for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and she has been awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship and twice the Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Award, as well as a Pen West Award, a Pushcart Prize and the Anahid Award for an American writer of Armenian descent. Educated on both the east and west coasts, she has a bachelor's and master's degree in history. A native Californian, she lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Editorial Reviews

Although even devoted Elvis Presley fans may at first find it difficult to warm to this novel, perseverance will be rewarding. Beneath its dense veneer of laudatory references to The King lies an absorbing tale of hardship, love and the value of holding true to convictions. Emily Nash, a timid and desperately lonely young social worker, lives in the small California town of St. Elmo, and remains stubbornly faithful to her absent law-student fiance. Emily's caseload includes Joyce Jackson, a welfare mother who has named her kids after Elvis's ex-wife and daughter and festooned her front porch with Elvis memorabilia. It is with some trepidation that Emily first visits Joyce's so-called Heartbreak Hotel; there, she meets not a fruitcake but a new friend. As the two draw closer together, we learn that Joyce's unusual behavior fully manifested itself when her husband left her on the eve of Elvis's death; since then, she has existed on welfare and on her illegal, unreported income from sewing quilts out of scraps. Emily eventually must make a choice between rational, professional conduct and her affection for Joyce. Kalpakian's ( Beggars and Choosers ) characters are a spirited lot who totally involve the reader's interest and emotions, although their tendency to speak in song titles can be irksome. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Kalpakian has a fresh, uplifting voice that brightens her new novel. This story of a welfare mother devoted to Elvis in a dingy California desert town is a nearly mythical tale of good and evil, and the transforming power of music. Emily Shaw is a society girl just out of college waiting for her socially correct fiance to finish law school. Her job as a county social worker is clearly beyond her limited world experience, especially her work with client Joyce Jackson, whose porch is an eternal shrine to The King. Despite warnings from her hateful boss not to befriend clients and her mother's disapproval of all things ``LMC'' (lower middle class), Emily is swept away and changed by Joyce's verve and dogged belief in life. Cheerful, good reading.-- Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.

Library Journal