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And a tender tale of winter solstice from the viewpoint of a wee mouse

‘LONG WHITE LIMOUSINE’

By Brigitte Pauli

Rising Sun Publishing (2022, 378 pp.)

Elvis has never left the building, as evinced by Baz Luhrmann’s new musical film, “Elvis.” Here, in another less exuberant take, German-born author and translator Brigitte Pauli offers a fictionalized account in diary form about the rock ‘n’ roll king’s inner circle told in the voice of his watchful, admiring lead guitarist. Called Jimmie here (supposedly based on the great James Burton, but never named), the narrator is 40 when he begins his diary, joining “El” at his home recording studio in Memphis in August 1969, before the band hits the Vegas circuit.

Jimmie is from smalltown Louisiana and gets choked up when El buys him paisley shirts to match his guitar. El listens to him regarding song choices because they’ve been playing together so long. Jimmie’s diary is a record of his quiet, concerned observation of his famous boss, and Jimmie sees clearly how his manager, here called McGregor, is taking advantage of him financially. Moreover, Jimmie watches in consternation as El’s wife, feeling abandoned by the star’s long stretches on the road, takes up with her karate instructor and demands a divorce.

The bulk of the diary moves into 1970, as El focuses on the Vegas circuit, leaving behind a dwindling Hollywood career. He gradually descends into ill health and drug use to fend off pain and fatigue. The last 100 pages merely

THE AUTHORS WILL BE HOLDING A READING AND BOOK SIGNING

Saturday (Sept. 24) at 2 p.m.

at Op. Cit. Books, 124A Bent Street.

sketch the years until El’s death in 1977. Jimmie adds an Epilogue dated August 2022 that wades into the controversy over El’s death — Jimmie suggests it was murder.

Not much of Elvis’s life is unknown at this point, and unfortunately this undeveloped work does not add anything new. The reader comes away with simply a sense of the singer’s decency toward others, uncanny talent and essential humanity admired by all the people he touched. ‘Grandmother Winter:

A Solstice Story’

By Gabrielle Herbertson, Illustrated by Lynn Garlick

Lynn Garlick Retablos (2022, 34 pp.) Winter can be a worrisome and confusing time for children — where do the animals go for shelter and how do the plants and trees not wither under the blanket of snow forever?

In this reassuring story for young readers by Questa author Gabrielle Herbertson about the inevitable passing of seasons, lushly illustrated by Taos artist Lynn Garlick, the arrival of winter in the forest with its shorter days and dimming light is well-prepared for and expected. Many of the animals like bears are fattening up and stockpiling provisions in preparation for a long winter slumber; others like robins and butterflies have flown to warmer climes. And everyone from rabbits to magpies to ants heed the call from Old Grandmother Earth, whose copious skirts will protect the creatures from the harsh, bitter cold:

“Old Abuela’s dress had skirts upon skirts woven of leaves and vines and cottonwood down. Her pockets were of every size and shape. Her face was brown as a walnut and more wrinkled than an apple left to dry, and every wrinkle was a furrow of wisdom. Her hair was long and white with streaks of rainbows and ornaments of lichen and moss. She looked beautiful to them.”

All the creatures nestle happily into the pockets and skirt folds of this wondrous grandma and feel her protection and warmth as the winter solstice arrives. All but one little critter, “one of the smallest, one of the youngest, one of the plainest,” a little gray field mouse, who is worried about the lengthening of the nights, and shortening of the days. She finds the courage to speak up.

“Will the sun go away?” she asks Abuela anxiously. “Will the night be forever so dark?”

Using a palette of moss and earth tones, and elaborate border designs like stained glass, the work portrays the winter landscape as magically nuanced, the snowy hills as extensions of Grandmother Earth’s long white flowing hair. She shows the little mouse that she is harboring the sun inside of her like a baby that is born on the solstice and grows every day brighter and stronger, and the nights like a velvet quilt will lift and the forest will smell like freshly baked bread.

“Nothing will be lost,” she assures the little mouse.