by David F. Ross
SYNOPSIS
Renowned photo-journalist Jude Montgomery arrives in Glasgow in 2014, in the wake of the failed Scottish independence referendum, and it’s clear that she’s searching for someone.
Is it Anna Mason, who will go on to lead the country as First Minister? Jamie Hewitt, guitarist from eighties one-hit wonders The Hyptones? Or is it Rabbit – Jude’s estranged foster sister, now a world-famous artist?
Three apparently unconnected people, who share a devastating secret, whose lives were forever changed by one traumatic night in Phoenix, forty years earlier…
Taking us back to a school shooting in her Texas hometown, and a 1980s road trip across the American West – to San Francisco and on to New York – Jude’s search ends in Glasgow, and a final, shocking event that only one person can fully explain…
REVIEW
Jude Montgomery is trying to find somebody from her past. She arrives in Glasgow hoping to make amends because years ago the decision that she made to leave her home in Texas for a better life, set off a series of events that would have consequences lasting decades.
Dashboard Elvis is Dead is not my typical book choice. This is definitely not an edge of your seat thriller. There are deaths, and people end up getting hurt, but this is a wandering journey through the hazy, blistering hot back streets of America. In terms of the style and feeling, it put me in mind of We Are All The Same In The Dark by Julia Heaberlin and Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.
The brilliance of this book is the all of the little things that seem completely random as you read, all have a greater significance later in the story. Everything is connected, nothing mentioned is superfluous and there is no unnecessary padding. This covers everything from the different characters we meet, various objects which trade places between the characters and also the descriptions of the political landscape at that particular time or location in the book. All of this comes together to build and display the bigger picture of Jude's life, and the things she has been able to achieve against the odds.
The story is presented as a mixture of fictional and real life people and events which blend together so convincingly that I was 100% sold. I believed every second of the story as if I was reading a biography rather than a work of fiction. By placing himself in the story, the author adds an extra layer of confusion as to what is real and what is not, blurring the line between fact and fiction in an exquisite example of meta fiction.
Basically I started this book not knowing if I would really enjoy this type of story. Within a few chapters I was fully immersed, living alongside the characters and with no desire to leave them. Despite the fact that the book was more devastating than shocking (which is what I'm used to), Dashboard Elvis is Dead is a beautifully written and complex story which, through the multiple events, topics and time periods, will resonate with a lot of readers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David F. Ross was born in Glasgow in 1964 and has lived in Kilmarnock for over 30 years. He is a graduate of the Mackintosh School of Architecture at Glasgow School of Art, an architect by day, and a hilarious social-media commentator, author and enabler by night. His debut novel The Last Days of Disco was shortlisted for the Authors Club Best First Novel Award, and optioned for the stage by the Scottish National Theatre. All five of his novels have achieved notable critical acclaim and There’s Only One Danny Garvey, published in 2021 by Orenda Books, was shortlisted for the prestigious Saltire Society Prize for Scottish Fiction Book of the Year. David lives in Ayrshire.
Thanks to Anne Cater - @RandomTTours, David F Ross - @dfr10 and Orenda Books - @OrendaBooks for the opportunity to read and review.
Publisher: Orenda Books
ISBN: 978-1914585401
Pages: 320pp
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