'From Here to the Great Unknown’

In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter to help finally finish her long-gestating memoir. Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they shared in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. This extraordinary book is composed of both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voice, a mother and daughter communicating across the transom of death as they try to heal each other.   EIN's Piers Beagley checks out Lisa Marie's truly emotional journey in her fascinating book..

Macmillan, 2024, Paperback / Audiobook/ Kindle / 320 pages, Illustrated (b&w), Category: Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography ISBN: 9781035051052.

As an Elvis fan it’s quite likely that you have already bought this important memoir from Lisa Marie Presley. The book has been a major success and it is such an honest and soul-baring look into Lisa Marie’s incredible super-emotional life it deserves all its success.

Almost every major media outlet has published their review of the book and praised both its honesty and the incredible stories that it contains. - (Australia's 'ABC' channel published a very fine article / review look here)

I have read multiple biographies and auto-biographies written by various entertainers and musicians but have never felt as emotionally involved as I did when reading this book.

Being part of a famous family certainly does not guarantee a happy life. Consider Frank Sinatra’s son who was only 19 years old when he was kidnapped and ransomed. And more recently consider the death of Sweet Inspiration Cissy Houston who had to witness her daughter Whitney Houston and her granddaughter, Bobbi Kristina, both die in bathtubs from drug overdoses. A life in the spotlight is not easy.

I have recently read ‘From Here to the Great Unknown’ the Australian printed book and also listened to the Audio-book.

The emotional experience of Lisa Marie’s journey is even more powerful in the audiobook. Lisa Marie’s sections are actually spoken by the actress Julia Roberts who puts exactly the right intonation into her story.

Hearing Riley Keough read her additional sections is very effective, but best of all, each chapter is prefaced by a short segment from the actual tapes that Lisa Marie recorded and this makes the whole journey that extra special and even more poignant.

In the printed book two different fonts are used to differentiate between who is telling the story.

The Cover
Some fans have posted that they didn’t like the cover photo however for me it perfectly represents the core story of the book. And no doubt it was authorised by Riley Keough. Elvis and Lisa Marie look straight down the barrel of the camera, both looking serious with the power and aura of Elvis looming over Lisa Marie just as he did her whole life. And while you can perhaps notice Priscilla’s hand leaning across, she is cut out from the photograph in the same way that she is similarly alienated from the book.

While Lisa Marie personally name-checks everyone in the book from Elvis, Vernon, Gladys Patsy, Aunt Delta, Jerry Schilling, Charlie Hodge, Joe Esposito, Linda Thompson, Ginger Alden to Jerry Lee Lewis, she never names ‘Priscilla’ at all, not once. She only says “my mom”. - And the Mom stories are very disturbing.

Of course the Lisa Marie "happy pigtails” photo with Elvis would have made fans feel better about the book – and that photo is included in the book – but I feel that the cover is an honest reflection of the book's content.

The Content
The book is divided into 9 chapters plus an informative preface by Riley.

1.    Upstairs at Graceland
– About early life with Elvis
2.    He’s Gone
- Looking back, there was really only one thing I was sure of: that I was loved by my dad.
3.    The Wall
– Post Elvis, ‘Michael Edwards’ period.
4.    There’s a Bluebird in my heart
– Meeting Danny Keough, working for Jerry Schilling, getting pregnant with Riley.  
5.    Mimi
– ‘Mimi’ was Michael Jackson’s nickname.
6.    Ten Years
– The happiest years, Riley and Ben growing up, the first record
7.    The bus from Nashville to LA
– Michael Lockwood, becoming addicted to pain-killers after the twins’ birth
8.    Ben Ben
– The death of Ben, permanent grief
9.    Meditation Garden  
- Riley’s last days with her mother.

In the preface Riley Keough explains...

“The early parts of the book are mostly my mother's voice, in the tapes she speaks at length about her Graceland childhood, the death of her father, the dreadful aftermath, her relationship with her mother, her difficult teen years. She’s frank and funny about my father, Danny Keough. She talks openly about her relationship with Michael Jackson. She’s painfully candid about her later drug addiction and the perils of fame…

Everyone who ever met her experienced a force - passion, protection, loyalty, love, and a deep engagement with a spirit that was incredibly powerful. Whatever spiritual force my grandfather possessed undoubtedly ran through my mother’s veins. When you were with her you could feel it...

I am aware that the recordings my mother left are a gift… I wanted this book to be as intimate as all those hours I spent listening to her, like the nights she spent in bed with us listening to the coyotes howl.”

The book is indeed a gift.

If you have ever wondered how Lisa Marie coped with life post-Elvis or noticed those old tabloid news reports saying that she had once again “gone off the rails” or spotted the tension between her and Priscilla, then the answers and much, much, more are in this stunning memoir.

While Elvis died when Lisa Marie was only 9 years old there is still plenty new to discover from this intriguing book, such as...

-    Her golf-cart trips with Elvis to visit Vernon.
-    Elvis throwing stink bombs into the pool room and locking the doors while ‘the guys’ were down there
-    Aunt Delta sticking the finger up to Graceland tourists who asked whether she was Aunt Delta
-    Visiting Elton John’s house.
-    Elvis going to Lisa Marie’s Parents-Teachers conference
-    Elvis riding Zippin’ Pippin’ with Lisa Marie while carrying a gun in his holster
-    Elvis throwing stuff off his Lake Tahoe balcony in anger
-    Lisa Marie’s friendship with Ginger Alden’s family
-    Elvis having the “Why God Made Little Girls” poem on his bedroom wall
-    Lisa Marie taking her kids to sleep in Elvis’ bed after he died “it made her feel close to him” even when tours were going through the house.

It is amazing to consider that Lisa Marie and her family might have been upstairs in Elvis' bedroom as we toured Graceland downstairs!

And Lisa Marie tells plenty of amusing stories....

“When I was in Memphis, I would wake up at Graceland around 2:00 in the afternoon and get everybody riled up ready to go play.  ...
Eventually my dad would wake up, and I get the call that I was to go upstairs because he wanted to see me. I always love that call. I’d go and hang out with him in his room. He didn’t really leave very often. There were enough people up there and enough going on there was never a moment of boredom. I would just sit up there, and he’d talk to me and ask what I was doing while he watched one of his 17 televisions or listened to records. Sometimes he’d come down and take us out – he’d shut the theatre down in town and take everyone to see a James Bond movie or The Pink Panther.

My dad loved to have fun and he loved everybody else to have fun with him, and he loved to laugh. He was very gregarious in that way: He didn’t do it to have an entourage follow him. He was generous because he wanted everyone to enjoy everything. He always had my back...”

 Or returning from LA to Memphis with Elvis flying the Lisa Marie...

“Sometimes he would fly back with me. And he would land the fucking plane, too. At the end of the trip you would get in the co-pilot seat, which made everybody nervous, and announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts. Elvis is going to land the plane".

I’d think, ‘Um, can I get off?’ and then I would tighten my seatbelt as tight as it would go and then I just remember everyone applauding as we landed, because we were alive.
We were alive.”

Lisa Marie never dodges any issue and acknowledges that the Presley anger and rage was no doubt carried through the family genes. That is what makes the book such an honest and emotional account.

There is the feeling of so much joy, as well as so much sorrow for what was lost.

While Elvis is only present for the first two chapters his spirit and emotional influence continues throughout the whole book.

There is no doubt at all that Lisa Marie felt alienated and let down by the lack of support from her mother. The third chapter 'The Wall' featuring Priscilla’s relationship with Michael Edwards is extremely disturbing.

And it is surprising to discover that this chapter has been edited, to remove the more worrying sexual abuse claims, from both the UK and Australian printed books. This is presumably due to the stricter UK and Australian defamation laws.

The complete and very distressing story is however featured in the Audiobook. This is part of the paragraph not included in the Australian printed book...

“The first time Edwards came into my room in the middle of the night, drunk, kneeling, was years before. I think I was ten. I woke up to find him on his knees next to my bed, running his finger up my leg under the sheets, and if I moved he stopped, so I moved. I was awake, but I was trying to sleep.
He said he was going to teach me what was going to happen when I got older. He was putting his hand on my chest and saying a man’s going to touch here, then he put his hands between my legs, and he said they’re going to touch you here. I think he gently kissed me and then left that night.”

It gets worse - and fans can only grieve for the damage that was done. Lisa Marie notes that her mother did little to stop the abuse.

Since the book’s publication Edwards’ family have tried to deny the allegations presented by Lisa Marie. However in Edwards’ 1988 auto-biography he freely admitted plenty of disturbing revelations including, “A sick feeling crept slowly into the pit of my stomach. I was craving Lisa sexually".

It is all SO, SO wrong and hearing Lisa Marie verbally revealing the facts in her memoir is extremely distressing and tragically helps explain the trauma she went through.

In fact it breaks your heart coming to terms with everything that Lisa Marie had to deal with.

(EIN Note: Edwards has recently stated publicly “I was encouraged (by the publisher) to embellish a harmless anecdote about Lisa Marie in my memoir from the 1980s and now regret that I did. I understand that these stories sell books, but the notion that I molested Lisa Marie is just a fabrication.’’)
 

In the Audio-Book the even more emotional part is hearing Lisa Marie’s own voice at the start of each chapter. These paragraphs are not included in the book.

Chapter 1 starts with her saying...

“Graceland was a vortex. It had no rules, no laws. There were so many pranksters, there was so much fun. I was up to God Knows what. Honestly God knows what, at any given time I was there I was mostly up to mischief. And whatever way I could cause mischief it would happen. I was a dare-devil; I was a true wild child.”

“And I found myself concerned and anxious and worried about him dying, early in my life, I was concerned about it. I used to ask him ‘Please don’t die’ and I just wouldn’t let it go. I knew that it was tragic, I knew was I worried - I had full anxiety about it”.

And after 25 pages describing the terrible tragedy of Elvis’ death and the trauma of having to then leave her Graceland home to live with Priscilla in LA, “My mom was very strict, in fact. She was never a friend, someone I could talk to”, the chapter in the Audiobook ends with Lisa Marie sadly saying...

“It was so, so hard hitting. It was so shocking, it was so upsetting. You could tell that something really terrible had just happened. The loss that had come upon all of us, united us. I didn’t realise that. I was having my own time trying to grieve my father but yeah I understood it was ‘Elvis Presley’ at the same time. I had to sort of deal with mine over a lot of time. It was like a slow burn. It’s still there if I go there, I don’t necessarily cry but I still feel all of the energy that’s there, it’s still there.”

The following post-Elvis chapters are just as revelatory. Lisa Marie had such an incredible life. The book helps explain the on-going tension between Lisa Marie and Priscilla while the stories about her relationship with Michael Jackson are yet another insight into an unknown world.

Lisa Marie explains their connection, “Everything about our lives was so incredibly abnormal. There was no reason why we shouldn’t connect.”

Riley notes, “Michael lived with us at Hidden Hills, Sometimes we’d stay at Neverland, too, but mostly he was at our house. In Hidden Hills, the call of wild coyotes would send me to sleep, but at Neverland I would wake up to a pet giraffe outside my window.”

Sadly Lisa Marie never finished recording the tapes for her Memoir and so the book really benefits from having Riley Keough filling in the spaces and adding a second perspective. In the book the two voices are cleverly presented in a different font.

In the Audiobook Riley Keough reads her own paragraphs, which again add more depth to her thoughts.

It’s a fact that when a person is happy, living more of a routine life, people tend to stop writing detailed dairies. So we are lucky that Riley Keough could write most of the chapter filling in the details of Lisa Marie’s happy ‘Ten Years’.

“These years constitute some of the happiest times of her life.... We would joyously travel the world together as a pack of twenty-five people. Fun every day, all day,”

Lisa Marie was living down in Florida, making music in the garage, off the opioids, arranging surprise birthday dinners for Riley with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, even renting out ‘Magic Mountain’ for her own Birthday - just as Elvis had done with Libertyland in Memphis.

Of this period Riley interestingly explains, “I wasn’t aware of the full details of my mother’s relationship with her mother until much later. For a long time, they let the past be the past so that Priscilla could be a grandmother for us kids”.

It is reassuring for readers that there was such a long period of calm and happiness and that Lisa Marie enjoyed the early days of writing and recording her own material and even touring.

But Lisa Marie’s life comes crashing down when her son commits suicide and we sadly know how the story has to end. And it all seems so much sadder when Keough reveals how Lisa Marie was refusing to see Doctors for the stomach pain she constantly felt.

Keough does not shy-away from the fact that people should always try and get medical or mental help when it is needed, so in some ways the book is also an important guide for any family that might be struggling with their own issues.

The book also made me go back and re-visit Lisa Marie’s music. Songs such as ‘Lights Out’, ‘So Lovely’, ‘High Enough’, ‘Thanx’, ‘Storm and Grace’ (Storm was Ben Keough’s middle name) are all given more context in the book.

The only negative for me is the lack of photos. This autobiography demanded a large section of family photos, hopefully including never-before-seen candid images, but instead we only get one basic photo at the head of each chapter. There are so many delightful photos of Lisa Marie with Elvis, and with her own off-spring and family, which all could have added even more background to the story. It is a missed opportunity.

The book can be read in around 5 hours, the same length as the Audiobook. While I appreciate owning the printed book, to dip into and revisit, I also thoroughly recommend the Audiobook for being able to hear Lisa Marie revealing her own feelings.

Overall Verdict: With so much pre-publicity there was a lot at stake with the publication of ‘From Here to the Great Unknown’. However the book is totally engrossing and fans will be enthralled that so much is revealed about Lisa Marie’s crazy and traumatic life. I came away with so much of a better understanding of the pressure on Lisa Marie - as well as a profound sense of gratitude to Riley Keough.
It is quite amazing that Keough has managed the trauma of reliving and retelling her Mother’s life-story for all of us to appreciate, and so soon after her Mother’s tragic passing. As the book’s guiding light she also manages to maintain an extremely level-headed approach to all the craziness of the world living in Elvis’ shadow.  

I am truly thankful that Riley Keough is as smart as I thought she was and is the strong guiding-light that Elvis fans need to steer Graceland and Elvis’ legacy into the future for the next generation.
The book is essential reading for any Presley fan.

Comment on this review - add 'Your Say' . - Have YOU read the book? Send us your thoughts

Book Review by Piers Beagley -Copyright EIN November 2024 EIN Website content © Copyright the Elvis Information Network   Click here to comment on this REVIEW   Lisa Marie with Riley Keough in happier times. More photos like these should have been in the book..

Two Elvis and Lisa Marie photos not included in the book.. Fans would have truly appreciated some more candid photographs of Lisa Marie with her father, especially ones that we have not seen before.

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