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I listened to the (excellent) audio version of this memoir, narrated by Julia Roberts and Riley Keough, and interspersed with audio clips from Lisa Marie Presley that she recorded as part of her book preparations. Lisa Marie, having reached out to her daughter, Riley, for help in pulling the final book together, unfortunately passed before she could see it through. The resulting work, made even more engaging with her daughter’s involvement, is equal parts the compelling and heartbreaking story of Lisa Marie’s troubled life, and a moving exposé of mothers and their daughters – awe-inspiring when it works out (as it does, so beautifully here with Lisa Marie and Riley), and tragically corrosive when it does not (as revealed by Lisa Marie regarding her often caustic relationship with her own mother, Priscilla Presley).
I could not put this book down. Prior to this read, I did not have a great deal of knowledge about Lisa Marie’s life, and found the memoir coverage of her early years particularly absorbing. Without looking to reveal any dramatic spoilers here, the book begins with Lisa Marie’s birth at Graceland, and stretches to include her mutual adoration with an Elvis still in his prime, her parents divorce when she was four years old, and the details of her childhood shared between Graceland and LA, and characterized by non-existent levels of supervision or structure.
Certainly the most tragic element of the book is Lisa Marie’s terrifying exposure to the declining, drug-addled Elvis, (still, as always, adored) and his hugely traumatic death when she was nine years old — an event that teems with the rawness of a life-long devastating impact on Lisa Marie.
The book, broad in scope and fascinating in the level of its coverage, carries on to explore how Lisa Marie grows up, from wild child, to angry teen, to experiencing her own traumas, coupled with years of addiction, and eventual motherhood, to her strange marriage to an even stranger Michael Jackson. Lisa explores a music career (she is conflicted about this), followed by her own gradual and perhaps inevitable decline. Along the way Lisa marries and divorces, yet maintains a persistently life-central relationship with her much-loved, hippy-dippy Danny Keough.
A truly wonderful book, I loved both the literary content and this particular audio rendition, finding the vocals (particularly Riley’s) perfect when combined with the absolutely heart-breaking intimacy of the text. Lisa Marie’s somewhat ghostly comments, spoken with what feels like her trademark prescience, resignation, and stoicism, literally gave me chills.
Highly recommended, this book is an incredibly generous gift from Lisa Marie, and her daughter, looking to help at least one other person on their own traumatic and painful addiction journey.
Not to be missed, this is a memoir that, for this reader, tops every imaginable list.
