Gypsy Queen: The Story of Lisa Marie Presley
From Here to the Great Unknown (Presley, Keough, 2024) landed on my doorstep two days ago. I have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Lisa Marie Presley’s memoir for months. With the help of her daughter Riley Keough, Lisa Marie posthumously unveiled the depths of her heart and soul. It was not what I expected despite the leadup to the book release. It was less and more, all at the same time.
From Here to the Great Unknown began with a series of stories via Lisa Marie’s voice recordings about her childhood visiting her father Elvis Presley at Graceland and the bond they shared as father and daughter. She provided a candid picture of her father as a God-like figure who she desperately wanted to please yet a frail and broken man on the verge of death that she felt helpless to protect. Lisa and her father were like soulmates mirroring each other’s adventurous spirit and mischievous nature. Life could have been different for Lisa if her father had lived, in fact, I am going to bet on it that it would have been.
The trauma Lisa experienced following her father’s death haunted her for the rest of her life. A girl on the verge of puberty navigating an immense amount of grief and loss, publicly, was a heavy burden for any child to bear. It’s no wonder her life became confusing and complicated, eventually ending in her premature passing.
Lisa Marie’s memoir is not for the faint of heart. Proceed with caution if you are about to read this book. It is deep, dark, and introspective. But there is light that shimmers through the darkness, just like her father witnessed through the heavy drapes drawn over his bedroom windows to keep the daylight out.
The sunshine in this epic saga of Elvis Presley’s daughter is her children, particularly Riley Keough who carries this story with the stoicism and grace of an eldest child left to uphold the family legacy. Riley is a blessing who I believe carries a history of Presley/Smith ancestors that speak through her to tell a story of intergenerational connection and resilience. Her spirit reminds me of a feeling I sensed when I researched Elvis’ ancestry. Elvis had a great-grandmother by the name of Rosie Presley, who was a resilient matriarch who I think worked hard, but did not take life too seriously. I think she weathered her storms with grace and was strong enough to raise multiple children on her own while working on a sharecropping farm. Some claim she owned the land. I think Rosie lives in Riley. I also see a pre-illness Gladys Presley running through Riley’s veins, eager to explore life and enjoy the simple things that it offers. Gladys, just like Riley, was full of light and laughter, but she also possessed a depressive side, like her son Elvis and her granddaughter Lisa Marie, that pulled her into the depths of despair.
It was interesting to read Lisa Marie’s description of her father. One minute he was a wild-risktaker testing boundaries and other times he was a stern father who was protective and cautious parent like his mother Gladys. Lisa didn’t form a bond with her extended Presley/Smith family members. She viewed Vernon Presley as a distant authoritative figure and her great-grandmother Minnie Mae Presley as a reclusive elderly woman. Taken away from her paternal family at 9 years old would explain the estrangement. Her grandfather Vernon would die only two years later in 1979, and Minnie Mae would follow in 1980, when Lisa was twelve. Although Minnie Mae was 89 years old, I imagine after Lisa left, she probably thought it was pointless to live any longer. The family she felt closest to were all gone.
Lisa Maire describes her father’s death in detail:
“They held me and took me downstairs. A stretcher went upstairs. I was in the dining room. The front door was wide open. They brought the stretcher down the stairs right past me. I didn’t see his face, but I saw his head, I saw his body, I saw his pajamas, and I saw his socks at the bottom of the gurney.
He wasn’t pronounced dead yet. They took him out and I started screaming that I wanted him, that I needed him, and I started kicking and punching whoever was holding me back, trying to get away from them, but they wouldn’t let me go. The front door shut.” (Presley, Keough, 2024)
This would become a paralyzing event that would eventually lead to Lisa Marie’s own death in 2023, following her son Ben’s suicide in 2020.
Returning to LA in the fall of 1977 was a nightmare for Lisa Marie. She had lost her home. She had lost her bearings. Her teenage years throughout the 1980s were tumultuous and the trust between her mother Priscilla and her was lost after, Lisa Marie claimed, her mother’s boyfriend sexually molested her multiple times. The daughter of Elvis Presley descended into a teenage wasteland of self-doubt, deep insecurity, anxiety, and depression. She used drugs and alcohol to mask the pain.
Being a mother was Lisa’s one saving grace. She felt unconditional love and purpose raising her family. Her children would transform her life as she grew into adulthood and give her a reason to thrive sober and healthy, but isolation and pain would return after having her twins because of post-partum depression that perhaps was not recognized by her family as such.
Lisa gave birth to four children, one set of twins, a twin gene that was passed down from Gladys Smith’s family, although I think I read somewhere that there were also a set of twins in Vernon Presley’s family. Unlike her father Elvis whose twin brother was still born, Lisa Marie’s twin daughters, Harper and Finley were born healthy. Finley shares a middle name with her great-grandmother Glady Love and her grandfather Elvis Aaron. If you look closely at Finley, she resembles her great-grandmother as if she has been reborn in her great-granddaughter’s soul.
Lisa goes on to describe her relationship with Michael Jackson that materialized out of friendship and likely an unearthed desperation to feel close to someone who resembled her father’s fame and grandeur. But the relationship would be complicated and short-lived leading to heartbreak and trigger the trauma of the loss of her father once again. Lisa would try to cure this affliction by leaving LA and starting over again in places like England and Nashville, where she would drive to Graceland just to sleep in her father’s bedroom, grasping for some kind of spiritual connection.
Lisa Marie was a gypsy. Her wealth afforded her the ability to move freely and frequently, yet she was anything but free. She was a bird in a cage of grief searching for home, a home she had lost when her father died. She tried to heal her pain. She surrounded herself with friends, family, and took a chance on creating a music career. Her friendship with her first husband, Danny Keough, lasted until she died. Her children were her life and they gave her life, but addiction and the loss of her son ultimately left her vulnerable and despondent.
My heart dropped when I read Riley’s stories about her brother Ben. He was a gifted spirit who excelled at everything he turned his interest to. He was a unique soul with a bright future. His mother’s addiction broke his heart and the responsibility he felt towards her care and wellbeing hindered his ability to make a life for himself. I believe his suicide was a mistake. He was in a temporary funk that I think he could have overcome if only he made the choice to live another day. What a terrible loss.
Lisa Marie kept Ben’s body in her home on dry ice for two months following his death likely due to the trauma she experienced having to let go of her father too soon. Ben was her soulmate just as she was Elvis’ soulmate and Elvis’ was Gladys’ soulmate — an ancestral bond through the ages. I suspect from my research, Gladys also shared a similar soulmate bond with her father Bob, a hardworking man with a wicked sense of humor who was devoted to his family.
From Here to the Great Unknown is more than Lisa Marie’s memories, or her losses. It’s her daughter’s departing gift to her mother. Riley opens a space for Lisa to tell her story and say goodbye with dignity and grace.
From here to the great unknown… Take my hand, let me stand… Where no one stands alone. (Mosie Lister, n.d.)
S. Angell is a published poet, writer, philosopher, and video blogger. She explores various topics, including love, life, death, history, and society from a philosophical perspective. You can find her on Instagram @rainydaypoetess
