have you ever read child bride by suzanne finstead? do you find it accurate.
thank you very much for this ask źØļø!!
I have indeed read "Child Brideā and as for itsā accuracy I wouldn't go as far to say it's entirely inaccurate but I do have several bones to pick with Suzanne Finstad as a biographer as I believe she has let her bias (obviously not liking Priscilla) get in the way of her better judgment, which in turn, has corrupted the overall validity of her book. For example, giving Currie Grant a platform to tell his version of events regarding Elvis and Priscilla in Germany, including a claim so egregious that I truly have trouble understanding why so many in this fandom praise this book š
I think a lot of Elvis fans consider/recommend āChild Brideā as the antithesis to Priscillaās āElvis and Meā which is fair considering Finstad highlights some very valid criticisms against Priscilla i.e her hiring a second, much more aggressive, lawyer to get more money out of Elvis, and her introducing her family (Lisa Marie and later on Navarone) to the āchurchā aka cult of Scientology etc. etc.
- however -
The book as a whole comes at the expense of Elvis and what I mean by that is that Suzanne Finstad is not someone who has his best interest at heart (I mean look at what she has said in some of these recents documentaries about Elvis) and in order to push her narrative that Priscilla was some fourteen-year-old s*xual deviant, she has made some incredibly inflammatory statements about their relationship, and it literally starts with the title of her book (referring to Priscilla as Elvisā āchild brideā)
And the main reason as to why I cannot comprehend how fans praise this book is that Finstad goes with the story that Currie Grants tells, which includes him saying that Elvis (24) and Priscilla (14) were having penetrative intercourse after their 3rd or 4th date ā¬ļø
excerpt is from āChild Brideā by Suzanne Finstad
So this is why I tend to cringe when I see other fans praise this bookā¦ I know itās not their intention but they are inadvertently promoting a falsehood that says Elvis was committing statutory r*pe against a fourteen year old Priscilla
Not only does that go against what Priscilla and others have said about the physical relationship she had with Elvis in Germany, but it goes against the pattern that Elvis followed for almost every single (long-term) relationship prior to Priscilla and even after
A girl that Elvis deemed āspecialā or in other words- good enough to marry- was not a girl that Elvis was going to have penetrative s*x with, especially not when he had the more worldly starlets of Hollywood and the showgirls of Germany and Paris at his disposal
PRISCILLA PRESLEY: āIn the past, he said that he wanted a virgin (to marry)ā
DEBRA PAGET: āHe always said heād marry a virginā
LAMAR FIKE: āElvis respected virginity. He used to tell Alan, āIāll never break a virgin. There are too many whores aroundā
We saw this with Dixie Locke, we saw this with June Juanico and Anita Wood, all of whom, in their many years of dating him never had penetrative s*x
We even saw this with women like Linda Thompson and Ginger Alden who he waited several months with before consummating
So because of that I have an incredibly hard time believing that Elvis would abandon his morals after just 3 or 4 dates with Priscilla, especially when he was having s*x with age appropriate girls like Elizabeth Mansfield, who often took Priscillaās place in Elvisā bed after she left
Another issue I have with āChild Brideā is that she has often either misquoted people, or written things that contradict what they have said to other biographers- basically many things havenāt added up when cross referencing between books
I have mentioned this one before but it is just so blatant, that I feel compelled to mention it again ā¬ļø
So here we have Joe Esposito re-telling a throwaway comment about Priscilla made by Elvis
excerpt is from āGood Rockinā tonightā by Joe Esposito
And then here we have Suzanne Finstadās retelling of that comment, where she has misquoted Esposito in order to make Priscilla out to be the s*xual aggressor
excerpt is from āChild Brideā by Suzanne Finstad
Instances like this give me extreme pause when determining if a biographer could be trusted or not- and when I was reading through her book again this comment about Sheila Ryan nearly made me bust out laughing
excerpt is from āChild Brideā by Suzanne Finstad
āSheila never had an orgasm when she was with Elvisāā¦ like are we talking about the same Sheila Ryan or-? ā¬ļø
excerpt is from āBaby letās play houseā by Alanna Nash
All in all, āChild Brideā definitely makes for an interesting read (mainly the second half of the book) but itās one that I will probably never pick up again as I cannot get over Currie Grantās involvement, especially his claims about Priscilla and Elvis that are completely unfounded
Scandal sells quite frankly and I no longer underestimate what people will say for money, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Elvis- I mean look at the claims made by Dee Stanley who got a whopping $100,000 from the National Enquirer to tell stories about a woman she never even met (Gladys)
So I would not be surprised in the least if Currie has been handsomely compensated for selling his stories to biographers like Finstad, because again, scandal sells, and him approaching Priscilla first isnāt nearly as page-turning as Priscilla offering up s*x in order to meet Elvis
