While completing the late Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, Riley Keough revealed new details of her mother’s final days.
“In the years before she died, my mother, Lisa Marie Presley, began writing her memoir. Though she tried various approaches and sat for many book interviews, she couldn’t figure out how to write about herself,” Keough, 35, wrote in the book’s introduction, which was excerpted by People on Wednesday, September 25. “She didn’t find herself interesting, even though, of course, she was. She didn’t like talking about herself. She was insecure.”
Keough added, “She wasn’t sure what her value to the public was other than being Elvis’s daughter. She was so wracked with self-criticism that working on the book became incredibly difficult for her. I don’t think she fundamentally understood how or why her story should be told.”
According to the Daisy Jones & The Six actress, Presley still had a “burning desire” to share her story.
“After she’d grown exceedingly frustrated, she said to me, ‘Pookie, I don’t know how to write my book anymore. Can you write it with me?’” Keough recalled. “‘Of course I can,’ I said.”
She continued, “The last 10 years of her life had been so brutally hard that she was only able to look back on everything through that lens. She felt I could have a more holistic view of her life than she could. So I agreed to help her with it, not thinking much of the commitment, assuming we would write it together over time. A month later, she died.”
Lisa Marie, the only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, died in January 2023 at the age of 54 after suffering cardiac arrest. A singer like her late father, Lisa Marie is survived by Priscilla, 79, Keough and twin daughters Harper and Finley, 15. The “Storm & Grace” singer shared Riley and son Benjamin, who died by suicide in 2020 at age 27, with Danny Keough and the twins with Michael Lockwood.
Lisa Marie is also survived by her first grandchild, Tupelo. Riley and her husband, Ben Smith-Petersen, welcomed their daughter via surrogate in 2022 and confirmed her arrival during Lisa Marie’s January 2023 memorial at Graceland.
“Thank you for showing me that love is the only thing that matters in this life,” Smith-Petersen, 32, said while reading Riley’s eulogy on her behalf. “I hope I can love my daughter the way you loved me, the way you loved my brother and my sisters.”
Tupelo was named in Elvis’ honor, bearing the name of his Mississippi hometown.
After Lisa Marie’s death, Riley announced her plans to complete her mom’s memoir.
“Days and weeks and months of grief drifted by. Then I got the tapes of the memoir interviews she’d done,” she wrote in the introduction, per People. “I was in my house, sitting on the couch. My daughter was sleeping. I was so afraid to hear my mother’s voice — the physical connection we have to the voices of our loved ones is profound. I decided to lie in my bed because I know how heavy grief makes my body feel.”
She added, “It was incredibly painful but I couldn’t stop. It was like she was in the room, talking to me. I instantly felt like a child again and I burst into tears.”
From Here to the Great Unknown hits shelves on Tuesday, October 8.
