"You were named for Elvis....Darlin', did you hear me? You were named for Elvis Presley. Not even your father knows that. Wouldn't you like to share a secret, just you and me?"

Simone "Mimi" Page once dated Elvis - and will never let her daughter forget it. Though Silvie grew up in the shadow of the King, it was her mother's unfulfilled life that really darkened her childhood. Flamboyant and passionate, with a southerner's flair for colorful stories, Mimi could inspire Silvie like no one else. "Nothing is worse than being ordinary" were words she pounded daily into young Silvie's mind. But too much success, too much talent, too much Being Somebody - even when that Somebody was her own daughter - could stir up a torrent of envy that Silvie would come to know too well.

Determined to escape her mother's long reach, Silvie moves to New York to become an artist - something Mimi has always aspired to be. But even when her career takes off and she meets a wonderful man, Silvie finds her complicated relationship with her mother remains a forceful tide, pulling at her dreams and sense of self. Silvie has nearly given up on reconciling with her past. Then a family crisis draws her back home - and she discovers what Elvis was really all about....