Category Archives: Great Are The Myths

The coursework is getting harder, so I’m being kept busy, and I can’t wait for summer to arrive. There are highlights, too. I go up to see Topper at Harvard when I can, and I visit Cornelia at Radcliffe as well. She’s found herself a boyfriend, a cute, scatterbrained boy with a soft heart andContinue reading “Chapter 39: Summertime”

Texas, 10 April 1956 Dear Birdsong, I’m flying around the country for personal appearances. I can’t begin to tell you about it, so I won’t! But I can promise you one thing: if you’re back with Miss Mary for your birthday this year, I will be too. I miss you, but you don’t seem toContinue reading “Chapter 38: Trying to Get to You”

I bring Topper to the South for Easter in 1956. The boy is in Los Angeles, so we don’t see him. It feels strangely empty to be back home without him here. On Easter Sunday, he’s in San Diego for the Milton Berle Show. I drive over to visit his parents and see their newContinue reading “Chapter 37: Rowan Oak”

The boy is now a superstar. I can’t explain it. I’ve never experienced anything like it, nor, I believe, has America. It’s unnerving. It makes me nauseous. Sometimes, when it fully hits me, the realisation of it, I have what can only be described as a nervous breakdown: strange, weepy convulsions. “This can’t be goodContinue reading “Chapter 36: Mystery Train “

We’re at a restaurant in the city with executives from the boy’s record label. His cousin is here too, the one who thinks I talk too much for a girl. Tilly has promised to drop by. When she does, I’m chatting with Scotty, DJ, and Bill while the boy works the room, charming all theContinue reading “Chapter 35: Heartbreak Hotel “

The boy has his first recording session for RCA in Nashville. It’s a far cry from the sessions at Sun with Sam, where it was all about the feel, not money, not making a hit. Now he’s under a whole new kind of pressure, both nervous and in a foul mood. He works best whenContinue reading “Chapter 34: Fame & Fortune”

Back home in Memphis for Christmas 1955, the world feels different. The newspapers are still full of the bus boycotts beginning down in Montgomery, and the air is uneasy, watchful. I write a cheque to the local branch of the NAACP and drive it over in person to Hosea Lockard’s office, intending to thank himContinue reading “Chapter 33: I Forgot to Remember to Forget “

At Bryn Mawr, I take a seminar on women’s causes, descended from the work of Katharine Hepburn’s mother, a suffragist and alumna who fought for women’s rights at the turn of the century. In one class, our professor says something that stops me in my tracks: “Feminism without racial justice is white women demanding equalityContinue reading “Chapter 32: Autumn Leaves  “

“When do you have to be back at college?” he asks as I pick him up from Palm Springs Municipal Airport. “Last week of September.” “What about Topper? Where is he?” “He’s back at Harvard.” I reply.  I change to other topics before the boy can ask more questions.  We pull into the drive ofContinue reading “Chapter 31: Moonglow”

I find myself at the Louisiana Hayride in the days after my birthday, seated in the audience beside his little girlfriend, whom, for some reason, I’ve been appointed to chaperone. Oddly, I don’t mind. I look out for her: buying sodas, finding our seats. She feels so young to me, untested, unarmoured, especially beside theContinue reading “Chapter 30: The Memphis Flash “