Lisa Marie Presley’s deeply personal and emotional memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, offers a rare and candid glimpse into her life as the daughter of the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. The posthumous memoir, completed by her daughter Riley Keough from Lisa Marie’s recorded memories, paints a picture of both her deep love for her father and the painful challenges she faced growing up in the spotlight.
In an excerpt shared with People magazine, Lisa Marie recounts the profound fear she carried as a child, worrying about her father’s health. “I was always worried about my dad dying,” she reveals. “Sometimes I’d see him and he was out of it. Sometimes I would find him passed out. I wrote a poem with the line, ‘I hope my daddy doesn’t die.’”
Despite the shadow of fear that lingered in her young life, Lisa Marie holds dear the cherished memories of attending her father’s concerts. “Going to his shows was my favorite thing in the world,” she fondly recalls. “I was so proud of him. He would take me by the hand and bring me out onstage, then get walked to wherever his place was on the stage, and I would be taken from him and brought to wherever I was going to be sitting in the audience. Usually with [Elvis’ father] Vernon.”
The energy of Elvis’s performances left a lasting mark on Lisa Marie. She describes the experience of watching him perform as something truly incomparable: “The electricity of those shows. There’s nothing I’ve felt that’s been even close to that feeling, ever. Electrifying is such a generic word, but it really is what it felt like. I loved watching him perform. I had certain songs that I liked — ‘Hurt,’ and ‘How Great Thou Art.’ I would ask him to sing those songs for me and he would always say yes.”
The memoir also touches on her own struggles, including a battle with drug abuse as a teenager. However, Lisa Marie found stability and purpose through motherhood. “I fell in love with being a mom,” she writes. “I realized I had been called to care for something else.”
From Here to the Great Unknown offers a raw and moving portrayal of Lisa Marie’s journey through life, the love she had for her father, and the legacy she continues to leave behind. The memoir will be released on October 8, promising fans an intimate look at her incredible yet tumultuous life.