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Waiting for Elvis
Stories by Toni Graham
The most beguiling single woman since Bridget
Jones
in eleven darkly comic interconnected stories
Zany, over-the-top,
and sexy, while achingly poignant and real, Waiting
for Elvis is the bitingly funny follow-up to Toni Graham’s award winning
collection The Daiquiri Girls. In eleven darkly
comic, interconnected stories that read as seamlessly as a novel, Graham exposes the
hilarious side of loneliness and introduces Jane, the most beguiling single woman since
Bridget Jones.
Nearing fifty, Jane is a San Francisco psycho-therapist turned dog walker, a wild
woman in an ever-changing body. She hasn’t had a lover since Lars, the unfaithful,
hedonistic love of her life, was decapitated in a car accident after a New Years Eve
quarrel. But grief be damned! With equal parts alcohol and attitude, Jane lurches after
all life has to offer—ever reminded that meeting the right man is as likely as a
proposal from a dead Elvis.
“Remarkable… Graham takes characters who could easily
become dreary stereotypes—and fleshes them out beautifully. Graham doesn't wallow in
these women's vulnerability, but she doesn't apologize for it either. She uses their
loneliness and confusion as backdrops for the action, not as personality traits. And her
prose is entertaining without being forced: Graham allows a good deal of brainy good humor
to flow naturally.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Toni Graham’s stories are as intimate,
intelligent, and intensely ‘feminine’ as those of Jane Bowles or Jean Rhys. Her
work is full of heart, smarts, honesty, and a wickedness that is uniquely her own. Classy
stuff from a very cool writer.”
—Molly Giles
“The ingenious way Toni Graham draws us into the crazy-quilt consciousness of her
protagonist is a delight in and of itself. Each obstacle set in Jane's path, each new
calamity that befalls her, is interwoven with a series of memories and
associations-episodes from Jane's childhood, messages from billboards and television,
epiphanies from half-remembered movies, bits of urban folklore, and tabloid headlines. In
offering us a close view of the warp and woof of one woman's psyche, Graham reveals the
weave of American culture--{)nly it's the underside of the tapestry, where all the frayed
knots and loose stitching have started to come undone. The stories in this collection are
beautifully rendered, with an eye and an ear for revelatory detail. Toni Graham's is a
voice that calls out in the wilderness, while still managing to sound smart and
sexy.”
—Scott Landers, Author of Coswell's
Guide to Tambralinga
Toni Graham is a native of San Francisco, currently
an Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University. Her first book, The
Daiquiri Girls (University of Massachusetts) was the winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for
Short Fiction. Among many magazines, her stories have appeared in Other Voices, Writers Forum, and Playgirl.
CATEGORY: Fiction / Short Stories
PAGES: 210
TRIM: 6 x 9
ISBN: 0-9728984-4-1
PRICE: $14.95/ Paperback Original
Publication Date: February, 2005
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