Riley Keough has said she hopes she can “give [a] voice to my mother” after finishing Lisa Marie Presley‘s memoir.
The memoir, which is due for release on October 8, was partially written by Presley and later finished by her daughter Keough. You can pre-order your copy here.
Keough was asked by her mother to help write the book – titled Here To The Great Unknown – and following her death in 2023, Keough finished telling her mother’s story after listening to tapes she had recorded during the writing process.
Presley died at the age of 54 after an emergency admission to the hospital in January 2023.
While her death was initially thought to be caused by cardiac arrest, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office later confirmed that Presley died from a “sequelae of a small bowel obstruction”, or an intestinal obstruction that constricted blood supply to her digestive tract.
In order to finish the book, actress Keough listened to tapes her mother had recorded.
Speaking about the process, Keough told People: “Because my mother was Elvis Presley’s daughter, she was constantly talked about, argued over and dissected. What she wanted to do in her memoir, and what I hope I’ve done in finishing it for her, is to go beneath the magazine headline idea of her and reveal the core of who she was.
“To turn her into a three-dimensional human being: the best mother, a wild child, a fierce friend, an underrated artist, frank, funny, traumatised, joyous, grieving, everything that she was throughout her remarkable life. I want to give voice to my mother in a way that eluded her while she was alive.”
Speaking about the recordings she listened to, Keough added: “The tapes are an incredible portrait of the force of nature that she was. Depending on the day and her mood, she can sound locked-in or distracted, vulnerable and open or annoyed and closed off, hopeful, angry, everything. You hear her in all her complications.”
She continued: “I hope that in an extraordinary circumstance, people relate to a very human experience of love, heartbreak, loss, addiction and family. [My mom] wanted to write a book in the hopes that someone could read her story and relate to her, to know that they’re not alone in the world. Her hope with this book was just human connection. So that’s mine.”
Presley was born in 1968 as the only child to her parents Elvis and Priscilla, and was the sole heir to the Graceland estate, which she inherited in 1980.
She went on to pursue her own music career, within which she released three studio albums, namely ‘To Whom It May Concern’ in 2003, ‘Now What’ in 2004, and ‘Storm And Grace’ in 2012. The former two albums peaked in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 album charts.
Meanwhile, Keough also recently announced a book tour in support of From Here To The Great Unknown, which will see her pay tribute to Lisa Marie Presley. For the tour, she will also be joined by currently unnamed special guests at each of the tour stops.
The tour will take place across six dates in October, with stops in New York, Graceland, St. Louis, Nashville, London and Los Angeles. You can get tickets to the book tour here.
