“From here to the great unknown”

Posthumous memoirs of Lisa Marie Presley From here to the great unknown is as raw as it gets. It describes her life, especially her grief due to the death of her father Elvis Presley at a very young age. The memoir was completed by her daughter Riley Keough after Lisa Marie passed away in 2023 at the age of 54.

The book is largely filled with depressing stories about her life. She also includes details about her married life with Danny Keough and Michael Jackson. However, there were few details about her marriages to Nicolas Cage and Michael Lockwood. Here are five things we learned about the Presleys from the book.

1. Lisa Marie Presley describes Elvis Presley’s lawless life in Graceland

In From here to the great unknownLisa Marie Presley described Graceland, Elvis Presley’s estate in Memphis, as its own city and with its own jurisdiction. She shared that with her father “was chief of police” and so was his Memphis Mafia “arranged”. Apparently they had very few laws and regulations.

She recalled that the mansion was home to the Presley family, their staff and the staff family. She shared in the book that her father and the Memphis mafia hung out in the downstairs pool room, full of “Endless cigarettes, dirty magazines, dirty maps, dirty books.” They also had a shed with weapons and fireworks. Lisa Marie wondered how no one died in the ruins of the mansion.

Lisa Marie Presley described her relationship with her father and said that when Elvis got angry, everyone would run away and take cover. She shared in her memoir:

She also recalled seeing the Memphis Mafia sitting behind benches while Elvis became angry because he wasn’t getting the medication he wanted. A week before his death, the singer hired Libertyland Amusement Park in Memphis to take his daughter on the rides. She remembered keeping one eye on the ride and the other on the gun in its holster.

Lisa Marie defended her father and wrote: “You might think he was crazy, wearing a piece with his daughter sitting next to him, but he was just from the South. It was really funny.” She considered her father a God and therefore his death devastated her in many ways.

2. The death of Elvis Presley left Lisa Marie Presley deeply saddened

Lisa Marie Presley woke up to a commotion and made it to the upstairs bathroom of Graceland. She watched her father die of a drug-related heart attack. She recalled in the memoirs that she was haunted by the wails of her grandfather Vernon, “He’s gone, he’s gone!”

She remembered that as a child she was afraid of her father’s death and wrote a poem with the sentence: “I hope my father doesn’t die.” The last time she saw him was when she came in after playing racquetball. They exchanged a hug and a kiss and said to each other, “I love you.” Not everyone shared her grief, as she recalled with disgust in her memoirs:

Elvis Presley’s body was preserved at Graceland for visiting crowds in 1977. Lisa Marie didn’t know if anyone had noticed her amid the commotion. When the crowd cleared, she continued “touch his face and hold his hand, to talk to him.” She said there were nights in her adulthood where she would just get drunk, put on some music and sit and cry.

Riley Keough also shared that her mother died of a broken heart. In the tapes she recorded before her death, Lisa Marie said that people always described her as sad. She shared, “Afterwards it was like a permanent imprint on my face, in my eyes.” Keough said she was angry at Elvis when she was little because he left her mother and caused her all this pain. She alluded to Lisa Marie’s life with her mother Priscilla Presley.

3. Lisa Marie Presley did not have a good relationship with her mother Priscilla Presley

Lisa Marie Presley wrote about the aftermath of her father’s death in her memoir: “My life as I knew it was completely over. He’s dead and now I’m stuck with her.” Priscilla Presley is someone who wouldn’t be happy with this memoir. Lisa Marie said her mother had a “cool character” and it was lacking ‘maternal instincts’.

One of the most disturbing revelations in the memoir was the abuse that Priscilla’s boyfriend Michael Edwards faced. Lisa Marie was just 10 years old when her mother’s actor boyfriend walked into her room in the middle of the night. She described the horrific experience in the book:

Priscilla was furious when she learned of Edwards’ abuse and confronted him. She forced him to apologize, but the abuse didn’t stop there. She further shared, “He touched me and spanked me and told me not to look.” There was a time when he threw a dining room chair at her when she confronted him about his disgusting behavior.

Although she was not a follower of the Church of Scientology at the time she wrote the memoir, she said that Scientology actually helped her get away from her mother. She said the church attracted people “cool, unusual, artistic people” who became her tribe. The relationship between mother and daughter warmed in later years, but Lisa Marie wrote: “She was never a friend, someone I could talk to.”

4. Lisa Marie Presley opened up about her marriage to Danny Keough and Michael Jackson

Lisa Marie Presley became pregnant at the age of 21 by musician Danny Keough. She terminated her first pregnancy and called it quits “the dumbest thing there is” she has done that all her life. They split soon after, but Lisa Marie said she had made plans for her next pregnancy. She recounted the whole ordeal, ‘Danny knew he had to marry me. I caught him. It wasn’t actually my intention, but I did it.”

Keough was the only one who cared for Lisa Marie. But the marriage did not last and she soon started a relationship with pop star Michael Jackson. Interestingly enough, Jackson claimed to Presley that he was a virgin at the time. In an explosive revelation, she said Jackson told her Madonna was trying to contact him.

Lisa Marie also addressed the child abuse allegations against him. She shared, “I’ve never seen anything like it. Personally, I would have killed him if I had.” She talked about how she felt during the relationship with Jackson:

However, it turned out not to be all roses and moonshine. She said Jackson was very controlling and calculating. She said Jackson wanted children with her, but… “I didn’t want any maternal influence, or any other influence.” Jackson and Presley separated less than two years after their wedding Smooth criminal singer abruptly broke off all contact with her.

5. Lisa Marie Presley kept her son’s body at her home after his death

Lisa Marie Presley was thrust into another tragedy in her final years after her son committed suicide in 2020. Benjamin Keough suffered from mental illness and had told his mother as much before his death. According to Presley, Keough told her: “I think there’s something wrong with me mentally or something. I think I have a mental problem.”

Riley Keough added in the memoir that he had not gone to therapy and had never tried anything like this. Oddly enough, Presley decided to keep Ben Keough’s body in a bedroom at her home at 55 degrees Fahrenheit for two months. She talked about her decision:

Riley Keough named this incident in her top five “Extremely absurd life.” When Presley and Keough decided to get Ben’s name tattooed on their collarbones and hands, the tattoo artist had to see photos showing the position of the ink.

Presley did, however “absurd” thing to take the artist into the bedroom and open Ben’s chest to show the tattoo. The Crazy Max actress said that she got the impression from her late brother that he did not want his body there.

From here to the great unknown is now for sale.