From Here to the Great Unknown

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains repeated references to addiction, suicide, abortion, and sexual assault, including a detailed description of sexual assault of a minor.

Co-author Riley Keough begins the book describing how her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, always struggled to write her memoir. Lisa “didn’t find herself interesting” and struggled to understand “what her value to the public was other than being Elvis’s daughter” (xi). Plagued by self-doubt, she finally asked Riley to help her. Riley agreed, but a month later, her mother was dead.

Riley was still in a state of mourning when she received the taped interviews her mother had done in preparation for writing. Listening to them “was incredibly painful,” but hearing her mother’s voice brought Riley’s own memories back, too. The tapes described many details of Lisa’s childhood growing up in Graceland, her relationship with Elvis, and her young adulthood. However, parts of Lisa’s story were also missing. Riley explains that her mother “was constitutionally incapable of hiding anything from [her]” (xiv); while this was Lisa’s “biggest flaw” in many respects, Riley was able to use her intimate knowledge of her mother’s life to fill in the holes.