This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.
As the only daughter of “the King” Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie Presley was kind of America’s princess. But she didn’t seek out notoriety, neither did she enjoy it. In fact, rather than being popular at school or anywhere else, she generally felt insecure and unliked and preferred to keep to herself.
She thought it was important to write a memoir but had a difficult time figuring out how to do it, writes her oldest daughter, Riley Keough. Lisa Marie did make a lot of recordings, and she asked Riley to help her write the book.
Then Lisa Marie was gone, at a young 54 years old. Riley picked up the torch and created a beautiful book that merges both women’s viewpoints.
From Here to the Great Unknown goes in chronological order, from Lisa Marie’s young childhood right through wild teen years, young adulthood, marriages, children, having her own music career, and to the death of her son and then her own passing.
Her closeness with her father is so sweet, and it’s interesting to hear a bit about her memories of him. She never really got over his death, which was when she was only 9 years old. I didn’t realize that Elvis’s bedroom and top floor have never been open to tourists (I figured the whole house was), so Lisa Marie and her children actually spent a fair amount of time staying up there, even as visitors toured the public parts.
Lisa Marie and I are only two years apart in age, so I remember various times over the years when she was in the news for some reason or another. I admit that really the only thing that ever got my attention was her two-year marriage to Michael Jackson. At the time, it seemed to make sense on one hand (who better than the King of Pop to actually understand the kind of life she had?). But on the other, it seemed so weird. The two just looked awkward next to each other, and Mimi, as Riley and younger brother Ben called him, never seemed like a “normal” person. Ever.
But Lisa Marie writes in the book that it was really a loving and close relationship: “I’ve never been that happy again.” Huh. Well, there you have it.
That being said, it’s just one small chapter of her life and the book.
Much more is written about her relationships with her children. Riley writes with such great love and affection for her mother. She says she was a wonderful mother, a great nurturer, and took such pride in that being one of the things she was truly good at, made for. So in the last 10 years of her life, when she became addicted to prescription medications after her C-section with her twin daughters at age 40, it really dragged her down and made it so difficult to be the mother she wanted to be.
Then, when her son, Ben, committed suicide at around 20 years old, it was devastating. She couldn’t handle the loss of the boy she was so close to. Riley feared that her mother would not live long after that 2020 event. And she did not: she died in early 2023.
I’m not a huge Elvis fan or anything, but it sounded like From Here to the Great Unknown was an excellent book, so I picked it up for that reason. And it truly is engaging, insightful, heart-wrenching, and poignant.
The book is excellent reading just because it is so real and raw. Sure, it’s about a woman who’s a celebrity (not because she wanted to be, really, but because her father was just a phenomenon: beyond regular fame). And sure, much of her life was informed by that. And there are a number of other celebrities mentioned here. But at its core, it’s about a woman who struggled with addiction, with profound grief. It’s about someone who loved deeply and was a devoted mother. Who was conflicted with so much that was beyond her control.
I put the book down with my heart touched by what Riley Keough wrote, how she presented Lisa Marie. It ends with her words at Lisa Marie’s funeral, and they are so tender and moving. I recommend if you can overlook the profanity.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 65 uses of strong language, 30 instances of moderate profanity, 10 uses of mild language, and about 30 instances of the name of Deity in vain. There are references to sex but little detail. Presley writes about being molested multiple times by her mother’s longtime boyfriend, about heavy drug and alcohol use and addiction, and suicidal thoughts. Her son committed suicide with a gun.
Click here to purchase your copy of From Here to the Great Unknown on Amazon.
