Losing Graceland Cover Art
  • “Nathan presents the reader with several fantastic characters in this rollicking, adventurous tale. Readers will pore through this fast-paced, adrenaline-filled novel and eat up the fantastic dialogue that brings Elvis back to life in a new, deliciously lascivious way.”
    — Julie Hunt, Booklist
  • “…engaging…a blend of the slapstick and the slapdash, the ironic and the painfully sincere…a wild road trip, a yarn spiced with plenty of humor and romance….”
    — Michael Lindgren, The Washington Post
  • “A novel of lost souls and a lost America . . . the idea of Elvis Presley hiding in plain sight as an Elvis impersonator is a stroke of genius. Losing Graceland is pure entertainment.”
    Tottenville Review
  • “Less about the hip-swiveling sex icon and more about friendship, Losing Graceland isn’t just a tall tale of another Elvis impersonator, but about life’s journey through bumps in the road….The road to Memphis is an interesting, if not endearing one, for the pair, who — gold rings and jumpsuit aside — find themselves to be surprisingly similar.”
    — Kelci Shipley, Marie Claire
  • "…Ben has undreamed-of experiences on this strange journey….with quirky characters and homespun wisdom, this will appeal to fans of literary coming-of-age-stories.”
    — Cheryl Conway, Library Journal
  • “In all the commercial and cultural carryings-on that are likely to happen in this, Elvis’ 76th birthday season, one of the richest may be Micah Nathan’s second novel Losing Graceland….a highly entertaining and rambunctiously readable second novel.”
    — Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News



  • “The duo’s adventures—brawling with the biker gang Hell’s Foster Children, competing in Elvis impersonator contests, visiting hillbilly oracles—are entertaining…”
    Publishers Weekly
  • “Micah Nathan’s first novel, Gods of Aberdeen, was a critically acclaimed story of adolescent angst. His follow-up, Losing Graceland, mines similar thematic territory as it follows another central male character, Ben Fish, on a wild and weird road trip….a fun, fast read for Presley devotees and coming-of-age fiction fans alike.”
    — Lizza Connor Bowen, Book Page
  • “Thus begins the weirdest of buddy adventures, with feckless Ben playing first mate to the is-he-or-isn’t-he Elvis, a superannuated hillbilly with the unearthly self-possession of a Zen master. En route to points south, the adventurers tangle with a one-eyed pimp, a trio of roadhouse sirens, a backwoods soothsayer, and other low-rent variations on a Homeric theme…[with] antic originality [and] the near-magic realism of Elvis as a geriatric Ulysses….”
    — Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe




  • “…a rambunctious coming-of-age tale…”
    — Colette Bancroft, St. Petersburg Times


  • “Micah Nathan’s low- and high-spirited, rambunctious road novel is an exploration of loss, faith, and human frailty—and as befits a story involving a character who just might be Elvis Presley, it’s also sad, unpredictable, and rather tragically funny.”
    — Brian Groh, author of Summer People
  • “Micah Nathan is a hell of a writer. Losing Graceland is a postmodern picaresque, overflowing with sly wit, pop culture icons, contemporary fretfulness, authentically touching revelations, and, most important, plain old good writing. Nathan writes with a grace and eloquence that is all too rare. He understands the awesome power of storytelling and myth making, and has written a book as much about that power as it is an example of it. A textured and deeply gratifying literary journey.”
    Alden Bell, author of The Reapers Are the Angels
  • “Losing Graceland is an alluring parable for a generation forced to find adulthood in the wreckage their elders have left behind in Great Recession America…Micah Nathan—his perspective pleasantly off-kilter, his voice spare, wry, and occasionally down-right evocative—has created a confident narrative for Ben Fish’s road trip of introspection and self discovery.”
    Stephen White, author of the NYT bestselling Alan Gregory series

dry, dry

March 15, 2011

The old gods–shuffling, sheathed in husks of chiton and stone–raised their throats to the sky and prayed for rain. Behind the brooding mob rose Culver City. I’ve been working on a Lovecraftian story involving Elder Ones returning to Los Angeles and finding it uncomfortably…dry. Okay, that’s not true. It was just a fragment of a [...]

Read the full article →

Uh…what day is it?

March 14, 2011

Things look a bit dusty in here. It’s been a while, yes? Let’s get right into it: The Virginia Festival of the Book starts this weekend (18th-20th) and you’ll find me speaking on two panels, beginning Saturday morning at 10:00, then I eat lunch, then I hop to another table for a 2:00 p.m. event. [...]

Read the full article →

Updates

February 28, 2011

1. A new series of radio interviews will be posted as soon as I get ‘em. I’m guessing a few weeks. 2. The reading at Newtonville Books was grand. Thank you to Urban Waite, Jaime Clark, and the NB crew. I signed a bunch of stock, so if you’re looking for an autographed copy…you know [...]

Read the full article →

Literally, Literally a Virtual Reading.

February 13, 2011

A month-ago discussion among my former-basketball-teammates-now-fellow-gang-of-fools involved a eulogy for literally; the correct meaning has been lost, we all agreed, and now we must use literally, literally. So here is literally, literally a video of my reading at Northeastern. I was very thirsty. I literally, literally drank a lot of water. Neil Gaiman discussed a [...]

Read the full article →

This is supposed to be kinda’ entertaining.

February 10, 2011

But sometimes it just seems like a string of self-promotional updates (the ostensible purpose of an author’s blog, yes?) and then I take a look back and realize: Uh-huh. It IS just a string of self-promotional updates. Though I much prefer the shameless self-promotion instead of the usual blog-gy stuff. You know what I’m talking [...]

Read the full article →

Radio

February 4, 2011

Today at 5 p.m. I’ll be on Boston University’s WTBU station, talking about the book and other stuff. You may listen to the live broadcast here.

Read the full article →

Nice-T, Clarification, Mail

February 2, 2011

I still can’t make sense of Ice Cube’s line from “Wicked”: Kickin’ out girls that’s nicety Yo, I gotta’ body count like Ice-T. I get the Ice-T reference (Body Count was the name of his lousy heavy metal band) but what’s nicety? Maybe a derivation of nasty? Or a portmanteau? Or maybe I’m just mis-hearing him. [...]

Read the full article →

Gods of Exeter

January 28, 2011

It felt a bit…uncanny walking through the Phillips Exeter campus because it reminded me of Aberdeen College (from my first novel Gods of Aberdeen). Uncanny because there is no actual Aberdeen College and even more uncanny (perhaps Baudrillardian would be more accurate?) because I hadn’t visited Exeter before, yet it felt very familiar, like an [...]

Read the full article →

Treat ‘em right, I always say

January 27, 2011

Which is exactly what Northeastern did; their reception rivaled any bookstore/assembly/book expo I’ve ever attended. They brought pizza, hooked me up with a wireless mic, and well…I rambled. Little Wolk was there and she agreed that next reading I will not start discussing St. Jerome’s affinity for the Vulgate. Unless it’s relevant, in which case [...]

Read the full article →

Schedule Change

January 18, 2011

Tonight’s reading at the Playwright’s Theater is canceled due to weather. We’ll be rescheduling for late February (once I have a firm date, you’ll find it under “Appearances”).

Read the full article →