In late 14th Century London, a group of pilgrims meet at the Tabard Inn to embark upon a pilgrimage on horseback to Canterbury Cathedral to visit the shrine of “the holy blissful martyr,” Thomas à Becket. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales details the tales they tell to pass the time along the way. In early 21st Century Chicago, a group of pilgrims meet at Union Station to embark upon a pilgrimage by train to Memphis to visit Graceland during “the rock and roll blissful martyr” Elvis’s Death Week. In The Graceland Tales, experience the camaraderie or lack thereof among these modern-day pilgrims as they tell their tales of community, of love, of exploits and sexploits, some whimsical, some profound.
A medievalist by training and an Elvis lover by vocation divides her time between the Low Country, South Carolina, and the Southern Adirondacks, Upstate New York, with her husband and three ukuleles.
