Forgiven But Not Forgotten

 

TITLE: From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir

AUTHOR: Lisa Marie Presley, Riley Keough

PUBLISHER: Random House

PUBLISHING DATE: October 8, 2024

PAGES: 304   

SOURCE: Library

FROM GOODREADS: 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 grieved. 

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. 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.

MY THOUGHTS: I have never been an Elvis fan.  I can respect that many loved him and that he was an icon, but he was before my time, and I didn't really care.  In fact, I spent one particular year really disliking him - the year he died.  That sound cold but a little backstory.  Elvis died on my mom and dad's wedding anniversary.  And my mom was HUGE fan.  And all she did all day was cry.  And I only young kid of seven years old and I was so pissed at Elvis for ruining my dad's anniversary plans. Years later, I started listening to Lisa Marie Presley's music when she started recording.  Her music was dark and angsty and everything I loved so I guess it all came full circle.  

I picked up this book wanting to know more.  I'm sure no one can imagine what it would have been like to have been Elvis' daughter and to be caught up in that crazy world.  I'm really surprised she survived as long as she did.  And when I saw Riley Keough finished the book for her, I immediately jumped on the library hold list so I could see what Lisa's childhood and life was really like.  And let's just say, it was stranger than I imagined.

Lisa Marie really had a great, loving yet short-term relationship with her father before he passed.  Her teens years were filled with chaos and self-destruction but some happy times as well.  Her adulthood was more trauma (yes, she was married to Michael Jackson and did really love him and yes, she kept her son's body at her home for over a month after he committed suicide) but after reading this, her life comes across much sadder and a lot less freakshow.  

Since this is a memoir and I don't want to rate someone's life, I will base my rating on the book itself.  I felt that the style which included Lisa Marie's POV her daughter took from recorded tapes interspersed with Riley's memories and recollections really did work.  At times the tales were choppy and didn't flow but Riley was working with what she had and what she could remember.  Overall, I flew through it pretty quickly and enjoyed learning more.  It even made me relisten to Lisa Marie's first two albums and I'm pleased to find I still consider them some of my all-time faves.

MY RATING: 5 Paws