From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir by Lisa Marie Presley & Riley Keough

Born to an American myth and raised in the wilds of Graceland, Lisa Marie Presley tells her whole story for the first time in this raw, riveting, one-of-a-kind memoir faithfully completed by her daughter, Riley Keough.

In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter to help finally finish her long-gestating memoir.

A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and now grieved.

Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, lay 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 toward 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 had in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world.

To make her mother known.

This extraordinary book is written in both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voices, a mother and daughter communicating—from this world to the one beyond—as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other—the last words of the only child of an American icon.

Audible Audio, 5 hours, 42 minutes

Published October 8, 2024

 by Random House Audio

4/5 stars

Though celebrity stories are really not my thing I was intrigued about Lisa Marie Presley‘s story which released last month. It’s not a long book, the audio coming in at about 5 1/2 hours or 304 pages.  I went the audio route, but I am sure that the print copy would also include photos.

Told from Lisa Marie‘s point of view, she had begun this process before she passed away suddenly, and the audio includes excerpts of her recorded interviews. Other than that, Julie Roberts told her story along with Riley Keough, Lisa Marie's eldest daughter.

This is one of those audios that I found hard to listen to as she described her life at Graceland, the death of her father when she was quite young, the relationship with her mother, and then growing up with her addictions and grief.  A very open and honest look at Lisa Marie‘s life that evoked a lot of emotions. Sad for her upbringing without guidance that left her handling her grief on her own. How she married four times and still seemed like she was searching.

I knew very little about Lisa Marie’s life before reading this book and it has opened my eyes to her struggles.

My audio was obtained through my Spotify account