Ward Wiggins is the biggest, oldest Elvis in a three man Elvis act. He had been a professor at the University of Guam who sometimes stopped by a local dive bar to sing Elvis songs, but after he's fired from the school, one of his former students, Chester, suggests forming an act. Chester becomes "Baby Elvis", performing the songs from Elvis' early rise to stardom. His older brother becomes "Dude Elvis", performing the songs from Elvis' movie career, while Ward becomes "Biggest Elvis" and sings from the final years. What was suppose to be maybe a month in a rundown bar in a Navy base town in the Philippines, turns into a long-term gig, with the three Elvises packing the club every night and becoming a tourist draw. Along the way, Chester and Ward start laying roots, planning their futures in the Philippines, with Ward becoming more convinced that he's living the extra years that Elvis didn't get, while Dude is looking for any way to get out.

I don't remember how I heard about this book, but what a find. Each chapter is narrated by a different character, often Ward, but each character has a turn to explain a situation and their view of it, making for a rich, layered story of gifted, yet flawed people who are each carrying the burden of their ethnicity in a town where the economy runs on American dollars. ( )

Three Elvis impersonators, depicting the three stages of his celebrity, put on a show in the Philippines that starts something of a religious movement among the locals. I didn’t care for the multiple narrators all using the first person, and I thought the characterization of the Elvises and the Filipino hookers who worked at the same nightclub as them got to be a bit heavy-handed. Ultimately forgettable. ( )

Written in the first person from the points of view of six different characters Biggest Elvis tells the story of the reincarnation of Elvis...in Olongapo, Philippines. Elvis lives again in the form of three Elvis impersonators portraying the early young-stud years, the middle movie years, and lastly, the portly, pudgy, final years. Their nightly performance is a huge hit in Olongapo, but as with all things, it has to end. As the performance gets bigger and more permenant so grows the obsession. In addition there is a sinister commentary about American greed and power that lurks behind the entertaining Elvis trio. ( )