Before Elvis There Was Nothing

With joyful and satirical irreverence, Laurie Foos navigates the wild terrain of a beauty-obsessed culture.

A modern day super-woman, Cass embodies the Elvis adage Taking Care of Business—from coping with the disappearance of her Elvis-obsessed parents and caring for her agoraphobic sister to treating the folically-challenged and avoiding the attentions of a perverted podiatrist—until the day a horn sprouts from her forehead. As Cass seeks treatment for her unwelcome appendage, she finds herself in a facility only Dr. Moreau could love. Join the beautiful Cass as she plans her escape and, in the process, resolves her physical and spiritual ailments, discovering more about herself than she ever thought possible and answering the burning question that lurks deep in all of our hearts—“has Elvis really left the building?”

Publication date: May 1, 2005

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8

Page count: 204 pages

ISBN: 9781566891684

Laurie Foos is the author of Ex Utero, Portrait of the Walrus by a Young Artist, Twinship, Bingo Under the Crucifix, Before Elvis There Was Nothing, and The Giant Baby. She teaches in the low residency MFA program at Lesley University and in the low residency BFA program at Goddard College. She lives on Long Island with her husband and two children. Visit her website at www.lauriefoos.net.

“A wonderful mixture of insecurity and insanity. Every line of Laurie Foos’s new novel is suffused with intelligence, wit, and daring. Exhilarating!”

—Fay Weldon