Elvis’ Literary Resurrection: It Has to Make You Wonder

The uninitiated might expect an annual convention of the American Booksellers Assn. to be a dull affair--you know, lots of workshops like “Serif or Sans Serif: The Debate Rages On.”

But not this year. Last weekend, when the ABA confabbed in Anaheim, gadabout author Gail Brewer-Giorgio was on hand to answer haunting questions about Elvis Presley’s death, questions that lingered after his funeral in 1977 for a good 10, perhaps 15 minutes.

The press conference had an irresistible title: “Is Elvis Alive?,” a subject Brewer-Giorgio has been raising lately on TV talk shows like “Oprah Winfrey” and “Larry King,” as well as KABC’s “Eyewitness News” and other game shows.

Brewer-Giorgio is concerned about the many discrepancies connected to Elvis’ demise.

Like, why did the casket that was supposed to contain the Big E weigh more than 900 pounds? (Had he asked to be buried wearing one of those really big belt buckles of his?)

And what about the mysterious phone call Brewer-Giorgio got from a man who sounded, she said, a lot like Elvis? The possibilities are definitely limited, albeit to no more than half the population of the American South.

And there’s more! The caller identified himself only as “Orion”--the name of the rock star in Brewer-Giorgio’s own 1981 novel, who faked his own death to escape the nightmare world that celebrity had forced him into. Who else could it have been but Elvis , unless it was some guy named Orion who got a wrong number, or some publicity-mad writer--and what are the odds of that?

Just a week or so ago, when Brewer-Giorgio was talking about all this on a TV show in Detroit--and not on some rinky-dink station but on an ABC affiliate, as she emphasized repeatedly--someone called in and convinced the staff that he was Elvis.

How? “He had such charisma,” she said. “They just knew it was him.”

Can further proof be needed? I think not.

Brewer-Giorgio has compiled these and still other enigmas, which together represent what she calls a “modern-day Watergate,” in her new book, “Is Elvis Alive?” (there’s that irresistible title again), to be issued this month in a staggering first printing of 1 million copies.

To support her case, she and her publishers are including copies of an “astounding” audiotape conversation with Elvis, one that appears to have occurred well after his tragic passing. (Must be those new AT & T fiber optics.)

On the tape, the King has a lot of revelations in store for those who still yearn to love him tender, not the least of which is that he hasn’t taken a sleeping pill in three years.

You can say a lot of bad things about death, but it does appear to be a sure cure for insomnia.

At the convention, Brewer-Giorgio said she has talked to individuals who have been in contact with Elvis recently (she wasn’t vouching for their credibility, mind you, just passing along the information like any good journalist would). They say he looks well, has dropped about 50 pounds and often sports a beard.

He has been writing songs--the Grim Reaper seems to be doing double duty as a muse, since Elvis wasn’t a songwriter when he was alive--and says he has been traveling around Europe and Hawaii.

Nothing wrong with that. I’ve always thought that after the Master calls me home and I’ve gone on to the Celestial Mansion of Infinite Light, Wisdom and Peace, I’d like to see Waikiki.

Some skeptics in the room asked Brewer-Giorgio why Elvis had remained out of the public eye for so long--nearly 11 years now. But hey, it took him eight years to resurrect a career after all those corny ‘60s movies, so I’m not surprised it might take him a little longer to recover from being dead.

Unfortunately, Brewer-Giorgio was whisked away by public relations types after only the briefest question-answer session. So she wasn’t pressured on the subjects that inquiring minds such as mine really want to know about.

Like, will the tape be issued in original mono or in electronically simulated stereo?

And will her book include the Elvis Presley Guaranteed Weight-Loss-Without-Dying Diet? (No doubt the National Enquirer will get the exclusive on that one.)

Still, I have to admit, the whole thing did start me thinking. Maybe there’s something to it. Elvis isn’t the only great musician who died under mysterious circumstances. How about Jim Morrison? Rumor had it that he was seen in Europe after he was supposed to have died in 1971. Maybe Elvis and Jim and Janis and Jimi and the rest are all over in Paris or France or somewhere like that, away from pressures of super-stardom and the jackals of the media, free to play the kind of music they always wanted to--polkas.

As Brewer-Giorgio herself said repeatedly, “It has to make you wonder.”

But I gotta run. The phone’s ringing. You never know.

It just might be him .