The Year Elvis DIed: Literary Novel

By Richard Van Der Voort and MR Richard Lee Van Der Voort

THE YEAR ELVIS DIED, is based on most of a year the author spent working as a freelance psychic counselor and spiritual healer in Nashville, Tennessee. Though fictionalized, the content of the book is based on actual events and characters. Unlike the author's novel, CHARLIE'S CHOICE, the "Elvis Novel" emphasizes story and character, though many esoteric concepts, psychic and spiritual, are included.Charlie Dawson's beginning in Nashville is not easy, but by attending the Unity Church of Christianity, he attracts like-minded "New Age" people and begins to develop a clientele that includes members of Nashville's "gay community". Freddie, a gay, and his older astrologer associate and friend, Laura Dunn, figure heavily in the story, and near the end of the novel, a surprising event occurs!Early in the story, Charlie enacts a successful spiritual healing on a young woman, formerly an airlines stewardess who had been brain-damaged in an auto accident after her parents traveled to another city to rip their daughter, Bunny, away from an older man she had run away with. When mostly well after several healings, a relationship between Bunny and Charlie emerges.Zell, a controlling mother, falsely believes Charlie, the girl's healer, is "after her money", a large insurance settlement. Bunny's father, Ted, an American Airlines pilot and nice guy, commits suicide, leaving everything to money-mad Zell and Bunny who shows little interest in material things. Zell does not know that Charlie, having tried marriage and family, is devoted to his spiritual mission and chooses to keep his life simple. Varied relationships and stories run throughout the novel. How the complex relationship between Charlie, Bunny, and her mother, Zell, turns and ends is VERY surprising!Another strand of novelistic experience takes place in famed Printers Alley where Charlie meets and has an affair with "Harlow", an exotic dancer in the Boom Boom Room after Vincent, the manager of the five top clubs Charlie consults for, introduces them. The end of that relationship involves a "different" kind of surprise.Freddie and Laura introduce Charlie to the gay community via the Number One gay club where certain entertaining and enlightening conversations take place. A would-be thinker, Freddie shares his cosmological ideas with Charlie who does a psychic show on stage in both gay and straight clubs until certain twists and turns take place, including when owner Holly's Voo Doo wife takes over after his sudden dath.A relationship with a secondary character, Charlie's obnoxious, user, would-be manager, and his "little clone wife", provides a "side order" of humor in the novel when Charlie allows them to move into his apartment temporarily.During psychic communication via automatic writing, Elvis in Spirit directs Charlie to JJ at the CMA Building, an older sex bomb who is very influential in the Nashville music community. She leads him to key clients including Myrtle, a kind but unattractive older woman who has a voluptuous young daughter. Myrtle owns the family mansion and gives Charlie a place to see clients in the beautiful Waterfall Room. During that time Charlie has occasion to do a successful healing for the attractive daughter, but how the girl is comes as a surprise later. By contrast, JJ also refers Charlie to Mattie Gerkins, Many strands of novelistic events take place, and characters, such as the "spiritual" busybody, Mrs. Fulton, are introduced and spin their stories before Charlie leaves Nashville just before a big winter storm moves in. Conflict with a trucker driving a huge truck occurs later when the dangerous storm goes wild. Charlie could lose his life because of the vengeful trucker. A visit from his father in Spirit helps to get him through the ordeal. And a whole lot more in this nearly 300 page semi-autobiographical novel, THE YEAR ELVIS DIED.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1541333071
• ISBN13: 9781541333079
• Release Date: December 2016
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"