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

Viewer Mail

June 5, 2010

Tonight I’ll be flipping between Jewish boxer/Rabbi-in-training Yuri Foreman and Game 2 of Celts vs. L.A. I can’t imagine a better Saturday night. Go ahead and insert your mid-30′s joke here, except I’ve always been this way. In college I loved doing laundry on Friday nights. Wash, dry, fold…ah, bliss. Micah, Congratulations on winning the [...]

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Dog Days

May 27, 2010

I threw. Scout ran. I threw again. Scout ran some more. And now he waits. Evidently when one uses “cyclobenzaprine” in a post, worry ensues. Fear not–my back is almost all better. I resume boxing next week. This link to a Boston Globe article about my good friend Steve Trefonides is long overdue. He’s an [...]

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Ramble On

May 21, 2010

Cyclobenzaprine is one hell of a drug. I now understand why they called it Mellow Yellow. But it’s gotten the back spasms under control. On that note (really?) I have some long-overdue pics taken by my (un)official photographer, Vincenzo Colecchia. Short story shorter: Met Enzo while on book tour in Como. He runs a small [...]

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And So it Begins

May 20, 2010

The pre-order is here for LOSING GRACELAND. Barnes & Noble has the best price point, but the others work fine as well. Along with your local bookstore, let’s not forget, and they probably need the business. Pre-order from Random House. Or Amazon. Or Barnes & Noble. Nine consecutive days of chin-ups turned my back into [...]

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Some Late Night Stuff

May 13, 2010

Frank Frazetta died. He introduced me to Conan. The barbarian, that is. Without Frazetta we would not have this: Almost every sci-fi/fantasy cover of almost every pulp mag post 1960-ish has that Frazetta composition: the thick-legged damsel in distress (often in foreground, dagger in hand), the broadsword-wielding hero in midpoint (broad shouldered, vein-strewn biceps), the [...]

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Elfman, Bong

May 11, 2010

Been meaning to post this early Danny Elfman clip: It’s atonal, bizarre, and…somehow ahead of its time. I think. Question: How long until they resurrect The Gong Show? Was it not the proto-version of “reality TV”? (which is a label that must die, just as friend Brian Jenkins insists “epic fail” must be tossed in [...]

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It’s All Over but the Shouting

May 7, 2010

Copy-edits are usually a chore, but the Random House copy editor is so damn good that I’m actually…well, entertained. I’ve won the Saul Bellow Prize for fiction. Super-agent Jud and I celebrated by trading stories about Rick James until 4:30 a.m. I’m trying to convince Takashi Murakami’s NYC gallery to host the book launch. How [...]

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You Do Not Stand Still

May 2, 2010

You do not stand still. A man of genius should be like a young boy who is never, never and never will be a grown up. He must have a new style and new methods. Not for fashion’s sake, but because he has outgrown the old ways. Wise words from Oscar Wilde’s dad. It is [...]

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Quickie

April 18, 2010

I’m sitting in the Brookline library, laptop fan whirring, children whispering in the adjacent cubicle. I should be finishing a chapter, but an update seems more important. And easier. So a few items. Cover art is almost finished, interior layout looks good–very good–and we’re working on a west coast sponsor for my Seattle/Malibu/Los Angeles tour [...]

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Somerset

March 25, 2010

Have you read The Moon and Sixpence? No? What are you waiting for? Somerset explodes the 1st-person-pov-is-too-limited argument. He does more than explode it; he sets it on fire, dances around the inferno, and rolls around in the ashes. Or something like that. Saudade. My new favorite word. Better than nostalgia. Perhaps the most accurate [...]

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