The only daughter of Elvis Presley, who was raised in Graceland, Lisa Marie Presley tells her story for the first time. This raw and riveting memoir was started before her death and faithfully completed by her daughter, Riley Keough. Lisa Marie recorded tapes for her long-gestating memoir before her death, and her daughter listened to them after her death and wrote the book, adding in her own words also. This extraordinary book comprises both Lisa Marie's and Riley's voices.
The memoir follows Lisa Marie’s early years of running free at Graceland, the strong love between her and her father, and then the trauma of being pulled away from his lifeless body. Then there is her troubled childhood after her father’s death, always being in trouble and being sent to school after school.
Lisa Marie and her daughter Riley talk with honesty about her adult life. Lisa Marie was married to musician Danny Keough, and they had two children together. Even though she left him to marry Michael Jackson, they had an extraordinary friendship that lasted until Lisa Marie’s untimely death. She went on to marry twice more.
This memoir is less about Lisa Marie’s success as a singer and more about her relationships – with her father, mother, children, and husbands. But it is also a book about her trauma, an ever-present grief that permeated her life, the joy she found in motherhood, but also the torment she endured with addiction. It’s an extraordinary life of wealth and privilege but also so much darkness. The ending is undeniably tragic and heartbreaking, even before Lisa Marie’s passing.
From Here to the Great Unknown is raw and full of grief and pain, but it also has lighter moments of joyous family occasions and contentment. This memoir is both touching and revealing.
Reviewer: Karen McMillan
Pan Macmillan