For Emma and Elvis (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780648557142)

In the northern summer of 1977 Australians Michael Byrne and Emma Riley are holidaying in Spain. On arriving back in London they are shocked to learn that Presley is dead; news that will have a profound effect on their lives.

For Emma and Elvis follows Michael and Emma as they make their way through the turmoil of the sixties and seventies - the social and political upheavals, the joy and the grief - in Australia and the world.

This was a time when radio DJs were liable to shout, in a suitably snarly tone, 'Right here we're gonna go back!' - before slapping a venerable black disc on the turntable, a gleaming vinyl portal to the past...

For Emma and Elvis likewise leads us to the past, to an era that has gone forever; to Australia in the sixties, when a 20-pack of king-size filters was forty cents, as was a 26 oz bottle of beer, or a gallon of petrol. When men too young to vote were conscripted to fight and die in Vietnam, and violence against women was deemed a domestic of no consequence. A Golden Era, perhaps - but only for some.

The story moves on, and the sixties become the seventies. The death of Elvis, in the dying years of the decade, signals the beginning of the end, one of many nails in the coffin of the old order.