Baby, Let's Play House - by Alanna Nash (Paperback)

About the Book

Award-winning journalist Nash explores Elvis Presley's complex relationships with women, his sexual identity, and how both informed his art and his life.

From the Back Cover

Thirty-three years after his death, Elvis Presley's extraordinary physical appeal, timeless music, and sexual charisma continue to captivate, titillate, and excite. Though hundreds of books have been written about the King, no book has solely explored his relationships with women and how they influenced his music and life . . . until now.

Based largely on exclusive interviews with the many women who knew him in various roles--lover, sweetheart, friend, costar, and family member--Baby, Let's Play House presents Elvis in a new light: as a charming but wounded Lothario who bedded scores of women but seemed unable to maintain a lasting romantic relationship. While fully exploring the most famous romantic idol of the twentieth century, award-winning veteran music journalist Alanna Nash pulls back the covers on what Elvis really wanted in a woman and was tragically never able to find.

Review Quotes

"Alanna Nash meticulously documents and explores all the relationships Elvis had with women that were 'extremely special, ' as Ann-Margret so delightfully (and euphemistically) phrases it. I was delighted to see my stepmother, June Carter, make an appearance, as she always became uncharacteristically silent when Elvis' name came up in conversation. Nash belongs in the pantheon of great music writers, and this book is a fascinating study - Rosanne Cash
"What's left to say about Elvis? Plenty, if Alanna Nash is on the case. She rips the satin sheets right off the King, resulting in the most entertaining Elvis book ever. Ann-Margret! Raquel Welch! Barbara Eden! Tura Satana! This is very funny book." - Jimmy McDonough, New York Times bestselling author of Shakey: Neil Young's Biography
"Alanna Nash never ceases to amaze me. With the many Elvis books published, few ever reach the depths that Nash achieves in Baby, Let's Play House, a page turner you'll want to read cover to cover. It's a fascinating look into the personal life of one of the world's greatest performers, told by an expert storyteller." - Steve Binder, producer-director of Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special
"Deliciously gossipy but never mean, revealingly intimate but never leering, Baby, Let's Play House is a masterwork of psycho-sexual history neatly disguised as celebrity journalism." - David Hajdu, author of Positively 4th Street, music critic for The New Republic, and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism David Hajdu, author of Positively 4th Street, music critic for The New Republic, and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism David Hajdu, author of Positively 4th Street and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
"A singular work devoid of fanciful rhetoric and the oft-told stories of Elvis's romantic conquests, Alanna Nash's Baby, Let's Play House instead takes the reader down a long, winding, and often unsettling path, where Elvis Presley's pathology and psychology are woven into the narrative against the backdrop of so many women along the way. Most compelling, however, is that the story ultimately is not about the women who loved him or left him, but about one woman who did both: his mother, Gladys Presley. A subtle, yet very powerful account that will lay the groundwork for a better understanding of how so many parts of Elvis's life, both good and bad, were so profoundly affected by this defining love, and this devastating loss." - Patrick Lacy, author of Elvis Decoded
"Alanna Nash's long look at Elvis' bizarre history with women...collect[s] all the madness, badness and sadness of the Elvis myth in one exhaustive and embarrassingly tempting volume." - New York Times
"New girls slip between [Elvis'] satin sheets on nearly every page...Combine that with an absorbing snapshot section, and [Baby, Let's Play House] will leave you all shook up." - BettyConfidential.com
"A major new contribution to Presley lore...[Alanna Nash's] focus on Presley's relationships with women takes us on a long and often fascinating journey...It's a welcome and well-crafted addition to our understanding of his strange, triumphant and tragic life." - The Globe and Mail
"If anything, Baby, Let's Play House heightens the heartbreaking aspects of Presley's life." - Los Angeles Times
"A frank and fascinating portrait of an essentially lonely man...[told] with grace and intelligence...The work of a master." - Louisville Courier Journal
"An exhaustive and penetrating work that functions as an intimate personal profile, a family study and a psychosexual investigation of one of the 20th century's true cultural icons." - Memphis Commercial Appeal
"Un-put-downabble." - Jezebel.com