Let's talk about the Book: Lisa Marie and Riley Keough; From Here to the Great Unknown

What does it mean to carry a legacy intertwined with personal memories and familial love? Join me, Christi Chanelle, as I explore the profound mother-daughter bond captured in "From Here to the Great Unknown," a poignant audiobook by Lisa Marie Presley and her daughter Riley Keough. With heartfelt narrations by Riley, along with contributions from Julia Roberts and recordings of Lisa Marie herself, this emotional journey offers a unique glimpse into their lives. As I reflect on my own connection with my mom, I admire Lisa Marie's candid struggle with imposter syndrome and her pride in being Elvis's daughter. This episode promises an intimate look at the enduring themes of love, loss, and the powerful ties that bind us.

Through the heart-wrenching lens of family tragedy, we delve into the impact of Lisa Marie's son Benjamin Keough's untimely death and the non-traditional ways she and Riley honored his memory. The enduring friendship between Lisa Marie and her ex-husband Danny Keough, as well as Riley's captivating performance at a Chanel fashion show, highlights the strength of familial love and support. My newfound admiration for Riley Keough transforms me into a super fan, eager to celebrate her future achievements. This episode is an emotional tribute to the power of relationships, legacy, and the connections that shape our lives.

Chapters

• 0:00 Mother-Daughter Book Review
• 10:22 Heartfelt Reflections on Family Tragedy
• 18:05 High Praise for Riley Keough

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I just finished the new book From here to the Great Unknown written by Lisa Murray Presley and her daughter, riley Keough. Let's talk books. I'm your host, christy Chanel, and this is the Love you Miss you bye podcast. I am so excited to get into this with you. Consider this my very first book review.

Speaker 1: 0:26

I am not a diehard Elvis fan, and when I say that I'm saying I'm not obsessively following everything he's ever done. I haven't seen all the movies. I don't know every single song, well I may. I'm not obsessively following everything he's ever done. I haven't seen all the movies. I don't know every single song, well I may, I may. He's kind of mainstream. You can kind of hear him anywhere Along the way.

Speaker 1: 0:52

Though, I did see and read Priscilla's book Elvis and Me Fantastic In the Audible version. She does read and narrate her own book, which is kind kind of cool. There were times where it was not easy to understand the whole thing, um, but once you kind of get rolling you, you're able to really get into it. She's not the best reader and narrator, uh, and I'm not putting her down, I'm just giving you my honest opinion. But this book is fantastic. It is narrated by Riley herself, majority of it. Also we have Julia Roberts stepping in and reading other parts of it and then you have little soundbites of Lisa herself when she was recording the book Because from what I understand, she started this book by herself and started taping her story.

Speaker 1: 1:48

So there's a bunch of tapes. And about a month before she died she asked her daughter if she could just help her finish it, because she never really got into it. She was like I'm just kind of done. I'm just kind of done. She didn't understand why people would even want to hear it. She didn't know how to talk about herself. I struggle with that. I struggle with that. I understand what that's like it's. Why would people care? Why would people want to hear what I have to say or my story? I think a lot of people do. It's called imposter syndrome and it's kind of nice to know that even Lisa Marie herself suffered from imposter syndrome Kind of makes me love her that much more. I never really followed her that much Like.

Speaker 1: 2:33

If I would come across an interview she was doing, maybe Oprah or something like that I would probably watch majority of it, if not the whole thing. So she captured my interest. But I wasn't like on fan pages and stuff like that and I didn't really know hardly anything about Riley Keough, like zero. You know they were doing the promotion for the Elvis movie where they were 100% backing the movie and giving credibility to it. That's when I really kind of noticed Riley Keough.

Speaker 1: 3:03

And then I came across a movie and I didn't watch it for Riley Keough, I just was interested. I love the 70s type movies. I watched the series Daisy Jones and the Sixth and fantastic performance. I loved it. I wished there was more to it because it was so good, loved it. I wished there was more to it because it was so good. So I may not have been a super fan of Elvis, but I was beside myself to read this book From here to the Great Unknown. Chomping at the bit would be the best way to put it. I was so excited. I'm not really a reader so I know I probably missed out on some really cool pictures that are in the book. I haven't seen them, but I feel like listening to it was better for me because hearing the story from Riley Keough really brought heart to it.

Speaker 1: 4:01

It really did, and there were a lot of parts that I related to that didn't really I didn't really expect, to the relationship she had with her mom. I can relate to that. My mom was my best friend. Her mom was clearly her best friend as well. They just they just got each other, you know, and it gave me the sense that Riley was a rock to her family, you know, a stable person that they all looked towards and I feel like I was kind of that for my mom. Yeah, they're older and more mature but they just they need us in a different way and it made me love Lisa Marie even more than I already did.

Speaker 1: 4:46

The book starts out and it's from the perspective of Riley talking about why her mom didn't really understand why she had to with the book. And I was like, sure, why not? Not knowing that her mother would be gone in a month, like she thought they had time to write it together. She didn't realize it would eventually be written by her alone. So after her mom died, she got the tapes and she laid in her bed and she listened to them. Now I know, 25 years later, after my mom's passed, hearing her voice is warm and fills me with memories, beautiful memories. Death would have been traumatic. It would have been so painful for me to do so. The fact that Riley was able to do that. I know how hard and difficult that was, but it's like she had a whole library of memories to listen to and you can't help but think, wow, what divine timing, what divine timing that that lisa marie did put those things in that form and in that way for her to hear it and for us to hear it. It's incredible and and some of the things that I learned about Graceland I didn't know, I had no idea.

Speaker 1: 6:28

You can tell how proud Lisa Marie was to be Elvis's daughter. She knew it was special. She was a crazy kid, you know, doing whatever she wants, getting away with whatever she wanted. But her dad, her dad knew how to keep her in check very, very quickly and very, very easily. But you can also see the love that he had for her when you hear these memories I definitely can. And in the situation that Elvis was in, where everybody was pulling him in one direction and another direction and he still carved out time to make sure that he spent time with his daughter, is really great to hear, because you know we kind of get caught up where we hear Elvis was on drugs. He died here, he was cheating on Priscilla In Priscilla's book. You kind of feel like he's a jerk. That's what I left the book thinking was, wow, poor Priscilla. And I'm not saying that didn't happen, but it's a different perspective on one man, the daughter's perspective and the wife's perspective. So we're all complicated creatures. We all appear differently in everybody's story. So in this one we got to really see the love between him and his daughter. The one thing that I did love was like she. She knew like the bottom. The downstairs was for the tourists and the guests and everybody that came through, but the upstairs the upstairs upstairs was Lisa and her dad's private area, two bedrooms. Nobody can go up there. That's the one-on-one time you get with Elvis and it was a special thing and she acknowledges that.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Talks about her roaming Graceland in her golf cart and trying to fire people at age four, which makes total sense, because who's going to tell her no? Who was telling Elvis no? Not many people. Like in that industry you have a lot of yes people and it can be very, very dangerous and it makes sense that people wouldn't be truthful in that environment. Priscilla also backed this up. Elvis had to have a lot of people around him, like there was always people around him. You know his family moved in with him and then he had all his friends and family pretty much there all the time, if not living there. Her warmest memories are having all of those people around and being in this environment. When she grows up and she has a family, she too has all of her friends and family around. That's where she finds comfort. It totally makes sense.

Speaker 1: 9:11

There were some not-so-happy times in the book that really left me angry. Where she talks about abuse by the hand of a boyfriend of Priscilla's, she tells her mother about it and her mother doesn't do anything but make the boyfriend apologize to Lisa yeah, that's how she handled it. There are rumors that she too was being abused in this relationship physically abused. I don't know if that's true or not, but I can tell you, anytime I talk about abuse like when I talked about the Menendez brothers being abused the biggest thing that people want to tell me is it was a different time, you didn't talk about it. It was a different time. Well, I say, fuck that. I was raised and born in that time and I don't think there's any excuse for a parent not protecting their child. I don't care. So that's not going to work on me and it shouldn't work on you. Protect your children Doesn't matter what year it is that you were in. Protect your children. And Priscilla did not protect her child.

Speaker 1: 10:22

It would be nice to hear Priscilla come out now after she's heard the book and validate her daughter's words. That would be a way to show solidarity and give that extra reinforcement to the things Lisa said. And I have to say I think that I don't believe this could be made up. This person is still alive and still out there and still denying these claims. And he also has a book out there where he says that, uh, he wanted lisa marie, but now says he would. He only did that for the book because people told him that it would create a buzz around his book. Oh yeah, it did create a buzz and it also showed us that you are a liar, sir.

Speaker 1: 11:14

I think that's the most famous part of the book. That and the part where she talks about her son, benjamin Keough. He passes away. He was the light of her life. Riley will say that in loving fashion. That was her full-blood brother. She adored him. They had a beautiful relationship, but he took his own life.

Speaker 1: 11:42

It was really difficult for Lisa Marie it sounded like to me, and her daughter would say in the book that she died of a broken heart. Regardless of what was going on internally, her heart was broken and she just didn't have the will behind it. She tried every day to live her life for her two youngest kids and Riley, but when he died she would have his body in her home for two months. I know that's shocking to hear, because we're used to it being a very quick situation. Somebody passes away in some cultures and sometimes you have a wake and then you have a funeral and it's snap, snap, snap done. And in this scenario she didn't. She kept him in her house and waited to see where he was going to be buried and went through the grief stages while he was there and she would talk to him.

Speaker 1: 12:43

There was actually one part in the book that was jarring slightly. Riley and Lisa were going to get matching tattoos that Benjamin had on his body. They called him Ben Ben Ben. Ben had his name, had his mother's name, lisa Marie, I think, on his hand, and Riley, I think, somewhere. I'm not really sure, maybe it was on his collar or something. So they decided to do corresponding tattoos in the same places on the body with his name.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Riley went and did hers and then it was time for Lisa Marie to do hers. She was. You know, I want the same font. Riley went and did hers and then it was time for Lisa Marie to do hers she was. You know, I want the same font. I want the exact placement that he has mine. And he's like, well, okay, well, do you have a picture? And she says no, but I can show it to you in person, takes him back to Ben Ben's body and shows him the placement in the font on his actual hand. You know what the cool thing is? He never talked about that in public because I think we all would have heard about it. He was very private. You got to respect the tattoo artist that did that. I think that's amazing that he kept that quiet and respected Lisa and Riley's boundaries, but still kind of odd. I don't know. I don't hold any judge, I'm not judgmental of this at all needed to move forward and be able to live, and I think that there's a lot of parents out there or just loved ones that would want that time with them. What works for one person may not work for the next. It worked for her and I respect that.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Another part of the book that really connected with me was when Lisa Marie herself was talking about her father and how she knew he was going to die. She knew it, she knew it and I knew my mom was going to die. And people look at me like what? It's a multitude of things, but inherently you just know it's going to be early and you know it's going to be devastating. You just know and Lisa Marie had that about her dad, just like I had that about my mom, and my mom knew she was going to die early. I'd wake up terrified, crying, warning her, and Lisa also did the same thing. She, I think she drew a picture and on it says I don't want my mommy and daddy to die. Just very in tune. She talks about how she knew. I can relate to that on a lot of levels. Really I really can, really can.

Speaker 1: 15:45

Along the way, I remember hearing that Danny Keough, riley's dad and Lisa Marie's ex-husband they both shared Ben and Riley seemed to have been with her throughout the book the entire time, like he was living with her even when she was with somebody else. They just were best friends after they broke up and the irony in the book is Riley says Danny, her dad has been with Lisa Marie since she was 17 and he was the last person with her when she died. She'd actually reached out to him and asked him to bring her something for her stomach because it didn't feel good. She was in a lot of pain and she needed him to bring her something, some Tums or something and when he arrived she was in distress. So he was the last person with her.

Speaker 1: 16:32

There's something to that, because when you hear it in the mainstream media like Dan and Keo live with Lisa Marie, it's like um, why is he mooching off of her? Why is he still living with her? They're not together. And you got to get this, this image of like well, it doesn't make any sense, like it doesn't, it's not traditional, so why would he just be living there? Like what's up with that? And then you hear the book. That just makes too much sense. They were best friends, they helped each other, maybe slightly codependent throwing my own opinion in there but if I didn't have a husband and my kids had moved out and I was still best friends with my ex, I'd be like yeah, why not? Here's your room here's my room. We'll help with rent, pay bills together and just help each other out. I think it's the best case scenario and honestly I'm kind of jealous because I think I would do that in a heartbeat.

Speaker 1: 17:30

There are so many beautiful parts of this book. You can feel the love. You can feel their hearts. You can feel the sadness that Lisa Marie's life has been. You understand, when you see her and her eyes, that it started the day her dad died and she never quite got her smile back, and losing her son was just the final blow. She compared him to her dad. They looked alike. It was her sweet Ben-Ben, and I'm just sad about that.

Speaker 1: 18:05

I took a lot away from this book. I feel like if you haven't read it or haven't listened to it, you really, really need to. It is so good. It is so good and I want to do whatever I can to support Riley Keough because she's fantastic and I know she's going to go on to do some amazing things. I just saw her in the Chanel fashion show. She sang when Doves Cry so good. She walked the runway, she got in a big birdcage and she was on the swing and the models were walking around her. My breath was taken away and the irony on that is her mother's absolute favorite designer was Chanel, so in one way it was acknowledging her mom killing it with the song. I'd put that on my playlist in a heartbeat. It was so good. I cannot wait to see what she goes on and does. I will be watching her. I am now a super fan and you should give this book a listen. Five stars from me. Love you, miss you, bye.