From Here to the Great Unknown

Lisa Marie Presley describes her father, Elvis Presley, as “a god” who could “change the weather” just by shifting his mood. Lisa was “super connected” to her father, and Elvis “was totally devoted” to his only daughter. However, even as a young child, Lisa “feared” her father’s intensity and did everything she could to gain his approval.

Lisa’s mother, Priscilla Ann Presley, met Elvis when she was just 14. When Priscilla found out she was pregnant, she worried that gaining weight “wouldn’t be a good look for […] Elvis’s wife”; she only ate eggs and apples and even considered trying to cause a miscarriage (6). Lisa wonders if the fact that her mother didn’t want her “might be what’s wrong with [her]” (7). When the new family left the hospital, the baby Lisa was immediately greeted by the press and taken back to Graceland.

Riley remembers being a little girl and watching her mother fix her makeup. She describes her mother as suffering from “a profound sense of unworthiness,” which Riley could never fully understand (8). She describes “a long history of young girls becoming mothers” in her family and wishes she could be a mother to her own mother and grandmother (8). Riley relates the history of Graceland, Elvis’s famed Memphis estate built in 1939 and purchased by Elvis in 1957 for $102,000. His mother, father, and grandmother moved into the 10,000-square-foot home, and Elvis followed a few months later with other members of his “entourage.” In 1967, Priscilla got pregnant, and they added an upstairs nursery that became Lisa’s room throughout her childhood. In the South, Riley explains, success consisted of providing an “opulent” home for one’s entire family, and this is what Graceland became for Elvis.

Riley remembers spending time at Graceland as a child. Even though it was open to the public for tours, it was “just [their] home,” and Riley notes the “strange and incredible thing” of having “your family’s history preserved forever in the place where it all happened” (12). When staying at Graceland, Riley, her mother, and siblings would often stay upstairs, which wasn’t open to the public and has remained unchanged since Elvis’s death. They would sleep in Elvis’s bed, and Lisa would look through Elvis’s books, reading the passages he’d underlined. Many of these books were self-help or spiritual texts, and the marked passages illustrated “a sense of the fundamentally broken feeling he shared with [Riley’s] mom” (32).

As a child, Lisa’s bedroom at Graceland was on the top floor next to Elvis’s suite, and she was permitted a “super special” “one-on-one access” to her father (12). Lisa describes her father as “very Southern” and remembers him being funny even when he was angry.

Riley reflects that Elvis used to replace the letter “L” with the letter “Y” when he spoke to his daughter, calling her Yisa instead of Lisa. When Keough had her own daughter, she found herself doing the same thing and realized how much of her grandfather had been passed down to her through her mother. Although she has “never lived in Memphis,” “something inside of [her] has” (17).

Lisa describes Graceland as “its own city” with Elvis as “the chief of police” (17). As a girl, she ran “wild” with her friends, tearing up the lawn in their fleet of golf carts, battling in the dark with pool sticks, and threatening to set her father on anyone who tried to make her behave. Elvis generally slept during the day, but once, Lisa remembers being summoned to his room in the middle of the afternoon. Assuming she was in trouble, Lisa went accompanied by two friends. However, instead of scolding her, Elvis gave Lisa and her friends each a beautiful, jeweled ring; he “just wanted […] to hang out […] and talk,” and Lisa felt guilty for thinking otherwise (22). She was just four years old when her mother left Elvis and moved with Lisa to Los Angeles and she missed her father terribly.

Elvis and his mother, Gladys, also shared an exceptionally close relationship. However, Gladys “drank herself to death worrying about” her son, and without his mother, Elvis was left with his “self-destructive demons” (23). Lisa reflects that she also inherited this desire to “numb out.”

At Graceland, Lisa’s grandfather, Vernon, was the only one who tried to impose some kind of order, insisting that Lisa should have a bedtime and not “eat cookies all day and night” (27). Nevertheless, Lisa enjoyed her days playing wildly until her father called her upstairs to spend time with him. Sometimes, Elvis would take Lisa and his entourage into town to see a movie or visit the amusement park, shutting the place down so they could have it to themselves. Elvis “loved to have fun” and “wanted everyone else to enjoy everything” (28). He “always had [Lisa’s] back,” and he was very protective of her, forbidding things he worried were dangerous. When Lisa rode a motorcycle behind his back and burned herself with the muffler, she “felt like [her] life was over” when she had to face her father’s disappointment (30).

Graceland’s front gates were always surrounded by fans, and Lisa would often taunt them as she drove by on her golf cart. Sometimes, she would take fans’ cameras and promise to take a picture of Elvis for $20. They would give her the money, and she would return the camera with a photo of the floor or a door. When Elvis got bored of being cooped up, he would lead a “convoy” of golf carts down Elvis Presley Boulevard while the assembled fans screamed. As a girl, Lisa loved watching Elvis perform. He would lead her onstage with him, and then someone would escort her to her seat. Although she loved the performances, she hated when her father turned “the limelight” on her. She dreaded being introduced at shows, but she did enjoy other aspects of Elvis’s celebrity, such as the pride she felt when he showed up at one of her parent-teacher conferences.

Riley reflects that any turn of fate in Elvis’s life could have meant that “there would be no Elvis Presley” (38). In this alternate reality, she muses that her family might have lived in Mississippi and been truck drivers or furniture makers. She is sure her mother “would have ended up in jail” (38).

Lisa lived most of the year in Los Angeles with her mother, and she was deeply attached to her nanny, a Japanese woman called Yuki Koshimata. When Yuki left for the weekend, Lisa would sob uncontrollably. However, the “true emotional trauma” came when Lisa had to leave Memphis and return to LA. She “loved everything about” Memphis and spending time with her father. Occasionally, a black car would pull up at her LA school, and Elvis’s people would fly Lisa to wherever her father was. This made her feel like her “life was the best life ever” (39).

One year, Lisa begged Elvis to convince her mother to let her stay in Memphis instead of returning to LA for the start of the school year. Elvis called Priscilla but couldn’t change her mind. He cried when he told Lisa she had to return to LA, but he never spoke poorly of her mother. Lisa muses that her parents “did a fantastic job maintaining a united front and a real friendship bond” after their divorce (40).

Lisa describes Elvis as having a certain “intensity” and “magnetism” that could be inspiring or terrifying. He would have violent, angry outbursts when “he had run out of something” (44). One time he canceled a trip to the local amusement park, shouting and throwing things “until he found someone who would give him a fix” (44). Eventually, he got what he needed, regained his temper, and Lisa went to the amusement park with her father. She remembers riding the roller coaster with him, pressed against the gun holster on his side. She knows that “that sounds terrible” but insists her father wasn’t “crazy”; “he was just from the South” (44). This incident took place about a week before Elvis died.