When Riley Keough was asked by her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, to help write the story of her life for an upcoming memoir titled "From Here to the Great Unknown," neither of them could have anticipated the tragedy that would strike just one month later.
In an interview with People ramping up to the release of the book on Oct. 8, Keough speaks of the sudden death of her mom on January 12, 2023 — due to a bowel obstruction, according to a report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner — and how it was important to pick the task back up after her immediate grief had subsided, as to fulfill her mom's dying wish of making her better known to the world and seem more relatable in a way that had evaded her in her lifetime.
In an excerpt from the book shared by People, Keough reveals in the intro that when it came time to listen to the stack of tapes containing hours of interviews with her mom for use in finishing the memoir, she was afraid to hear her voice.
“The tapes are an incredible portrait of the force of nature that she was,” Keough says in her interview with the magazine. “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.”
Further along in the excerpt, Keough writes in her intro that the early part of the book is in her mom's own voice and that she's frank about her relationship with Michael Jackson and her struggles with drug abuse. She holds nothing back.
"I hope that in an extraordinary circumstance, people relate to a very human experience of love, heartbreak, loss, addiction and family,” Keough says to People. “[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."
