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From Here to the Great Unknown: Oprah's Book Club: A Memoir by Lisa-Marie Presley, Riley Keough cover

From Here to the Great Unknown: Oprah's Book Club: A Memoir

by Lisa-Marie Presley, Riley Keough

$12.99 on AmazonRead our full review

At a glance

First published2024
NarratorRiley Keough, Julia Roberts
AudienceAdult

About the Author

Lisa-Marie Presley, Riley Keough

1 book reviewed

From Here to the Great Unknown

Oprah's Book Club: A Memoir

by Lisa-Marie Presley, Riley Keough

LuvemBooks Verdict

Best for: Readers who want a candid, emotionally unsparing memoir about addiction, grief, and an extraordinary life — particularly those drawn to accounts that resist celebrity gloss and engage seriously with trauma and loss across generations.

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From Here to the Great Unknown is a posthumously completed memoir co-authored by Lisa Marie Presley and her daughter Riley Keough, tracing Lisa Marie's singular childhood at Graceland, her marriages to Danny Keough and Michael Jackson, and decades of addiction and grief — completed from audio recordings Keough transcribed after her mother's death in January 2023. The dual-voice structure, which preserves Lisa Marie's own recorded words alongside Keough's written perspective, gives the memoir an immediacy few posthumous works achieve. This is essential reading for those drawn to candid, emotionally unsparing memoir, but readers expecting a breezy celebrity retrospective should be prepared for considerably heavier terrain.
Is it worth reading?
For readers drawn to candid, emotionally unflinching memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown delivers something rare: the preserved voice of a woman who spent her life in the shadow of an American myth, completed by a daughter who inherited her grief. The New York Times and The Washington Post both praised the depth with which it confronts its hardest material — addiction, loss, and what Lisa Marie described as her own "disintegration." The book is a national bestseller, a New York Times bestseller, and an Oprah's Book Club pick, reflecting both critical regard and broad reader resonance. The key caveat is emotional weight: this is not a light celebrity retrospective, and the structural asymmetry between the two voices is a byproduct of the circumstances rather than a failure of intent.
Similar books
Readers who connect with From Here to the Great Unknown's unflinching honesty about addiction and grief may find strong parallels in Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry, another celebrity memoir that confronts addiction without softening. For a memoir that pairs an extraordinary life with frank reckoning, The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley remains a landmark of the form. Glennon Doyle's Untamed offers the same candid, emotionally direct voice for readers drawn to self-excavating memoir, while In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park and Maryanne Vollers delivers the kind of survival narrative that shares this book's refusal to look away from trauma. For readers interested in the broader cultural world of rock royalty and fame, The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz provides an in-depth look at another defining American musical legend.
Who should read this?
From Here to the Great Unknown is best suited to readers who appreciate candid memoir that does not soften addiction, grief, or the psychological weight of an extraordinary upbringing. It will resonate with those curious about the private life of Lisa Marie Presley beyond her famous surname, as well as readers interested in the craft of posthumous memoir and dual-voice narrative. Fans of celebrity memoir who prefer lighter, anecdote-driven accounts may find the emotional register heavier than expected. The book's Oprah's Book Club selection also makes it a natural fit for book clubs willing to engage with demanding material.
What are the main themes?
The memoir's central themes are grief, addiction, and the experience of growing up in the shadow of an American myth. Lisa Marie writes extensively about the loss of her father Elvis Presley and how that grief threaded her entire life, as well as her battles with addiction — what she described as her own "disintegration" — and the losses that accumulated across decades. Alongside those, the book explores the nature of unconditional love (particularly between Lisa Marie and Elvis, and between Lisa Marie and Riley Keough), and the question of what it means to be known as a person rather than a famous name.
How does the dual-voice format work?
The memoir is written in two distinct voices: Lisa Marie Presley's, drawn directly from audio recordings she made in 2022, and Riley Keough's own, written after her mother's death. Keough transcribed the tapes and shaped them into the book, adding her own perspective to provide context, grief, and a daughter's reckoning. The publisher describes the aim as making Lisa Marie known as the "passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved" — a three-dimensional figure rather than a famous surname. The structural balance is inherently asymmetric: Keough's voice is necessarily more prominent in sections she authored alone, which is a byproduct of the circumstances rather than a failure of intent.
What should sensitive readers know?
From Here to the Great Unknown is emotionally demanding reading. The memoir contains detailed accounts of addiction, grief, and what critics noted were passages on suicide — material that Lisa Marie addressed with direct, unflinching honesty. The review describes her writing about her own "disintegration" and her fights against addiction and grief over decades. Readers who are sensitive to these themes, or who are in recovery themselves, should approach with that awareness. This is not a light celebrity account; the tone is considerably heavier than readers expecting a breezy behind-the-scenes memoir may anticipate.
Summarize this book

Summarize this book

From Here to the Great Unknown is a memoir jointly credited to Lisa Marie Presley and her daughter Riley Keough, published by Random House on October 8, 2024. In 2022, Lisa Marie began recording audio tapes recounting her life — her childhood at Graceland alongside Elvis Presley, her marriages to Danny Keough and Michael Jackson, her struggles with addiction, and the grief that marked her from the moment she ran toward her father's body on the bathroom floor as a child. After Lisa Marie's death in January 2023, Keough transcribed those recordings, added her own perspective as a grieving daughter, and shaped the material into the book readers hold today. The publisher describes it as "a mother and daughter communicating — from this world to the one beyond — as they try to heal each other."

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Age & Reading Level

Recommended age

Adult

Reading level

Adult

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Content to know about

detailed addiction content
on-page grief and trauma
suicide references
childhood parental death

Best for: Adults — detailed accounts of addiction, suicide references, and decades of grief make this unsuitable for younger readers.

Skip if you're looking for a light, anecdote-driven celebrity memoir.

Editorial Review

From Here to the Great Unknown is a posthumously completed memoir co-authored by Lisa Marie Presley and her daughter Riley Keough, published by Random House on October 8, 2024. Lisa Marie began recording audio tapes for the book in 2022 shortly before her death in January 2023; Keough transcribed and completed those recordings into the memoir readers hold today.…

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Books like From Here to the Great Unknown

Curated picks for readers who enjoyed From Here to the Great Unknown, with our reasoning for each match.

If you liked From Here to the Great Unknown

In our catalogue

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Malcolm X and Alex Haley

A landmark dual-voice memoir — one life told through two distinct perspectives — that pioneered the collaborative testimony structure Keough and Presley use to powerful effect.

Readers drawn to the layered, two-voice structure of From Here to the Great Unknown will find a fascinating predecessor in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, where Malcolm's spoken narrative was shaped and rendered by Alex Haley. The book raises the same questions about who controls a life story, how much an intermediary's perspective shapes the final text, and what is gained or lost when a narrator cannot complete their own testament. For readers interested in books like From Here to the Great Unknown that blend a singular, larger-than-life subject with a collaborator's careful hand, this classic sits at the top of the list. The themes of transformation, addiction, trauma, and identity are just as present here — wrapped inside one of the most consequential American life stories ever committed to the page.

In our catalogue

Untamed

Glennon Doyle

Both memoirs track women reclaiming themselves after years of addiction, damaging relationships, and performing a version of womanhood that wasn't theirs — written with visceral emotional courage.

If you liked From Here to the Great Unknown for its emotional intensity and its portrait of a woman fighting to exist on her own terms beneath the weight of expectation, Glennon Doyle's Untamed delivers a similar catharsis from a different angle. Doyle writes about addiction, a collapsing marriage, and the slow, painful process of choosing herself — themes that echo directly through Lisa Marie Presley's memoir. Both books are unapologetically raw, both resist tidy recovery narratives, and both have resonated deeply with readers who want memoirs that feel honest rather than packaged. Untamed became an Oprah's Book Club pick for the same reasons From Here to the Great Unknown did: it tells the truth without asking permission. A natural next read for anyone searching for what to read after From Here to the Great Unknown.

In our catalogue

The Beatles: The Biography

Bob Spitz

Reveals the private chaos, addiction, and grief behind pop music's greatest myth — essential companion reading for those fascinated by Elvis's world and the rock-royalty era Lisa Marie inhabited.

Lisa Marie Presley's memoir is inseparable from the world of rock royalty — a world where Elvis Presley's Graceland was both a home and a monument, and where the line between family life and public myth barely existed. Bob Spitz's definitive Beatles biography inhabits that same cultural atmosphere, pulling back the curtain on the private lives, substance abuse, creative tensions, and eventual grief that lay behind the most famous music act in history. Readers of From Here to the Great Unknown who want to understand the broader ecosystem of 20th-century pop mythology — the one that shaped Lisa Marie, drew her to Michael Jackson, and defined the only world she ever knew — will find Spitz's exhaustively researched narrative a riveting companion. A top pick for anyone searching for books like From Here to the Great Unknown with a music-world lens.

Not your thing?

In our catalogue

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

Jonathan Rosen

If the unrelenting grief and addiction spirals felt too heavy, this book covers mental illness and loss with the same emotional depth but through a more distanced, narrative-driven structure.

From Here to the Great Unknown is an emotionally immersive book — the dual-voice structure pulls readers very close to trauma, addiction, and grief, and some readers may find that sustained closeness difficult to sustain. If you wanted to engage with themes of mental illness, substance dependency, and the helplessness of watching someone you love spiral — but preferred more narrative distance — Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds is an excellent alternative. Rosen writes about his childhood friend Michael Laudor, a brilliant man whose schizophrenia led to tragedy, and he frames the story as both a personal reckoning and a broader inquiry into how society handles mental illness. The emotional weight is equally serious, but the essayistic, investigative structure gives readers more breathing room. A strong choice for anyone who bounced from From Here to the Great Unknown but still wants a deeply human story about addiction, grief, and what we owe the people we love.