Here's another memoir I HIGHLY recommend as an audio listen. It is a true treat and a bit unusual in the sense that Julia Roberts reads the narratives of Lisa Marie Presley, Riley Keough reads as herself discussing the life of her mother AND there are snippets of Lisa Marie's real voice in recordings made of her prior to her untimely death.
To say that Lisa Marie had a tragic life, is too easy. To say she had a complicated life.....an interesting life.....an eventful life.....a beautiful life might be better. A baby then girl then woman who never had an inch of privacy and was known by the world before she knew herself.....how did she have a chance at anything beyond complication?
She's very honest about the wild silliness of her life growing up at Graceland and the cold detachment of her mother. My favorite parts of this book are when Lisa describes the food, the smells and the feel of the South.....a feeling that comes back to her every time she returns. I love the way she mimics phrases her dad said and makes note of the way Southerners say "goddamm!" She ain't wrong.
I love Riley's soft understanding of her mother. Lisa Marie was so rooted in her children and her motherhood. Being a mother was definitely the triumph of her life, and she passed on that importance to Riley.
Reading this book made me want to go back and dive into Elvis Presley again, which I have done countless times before, such as Linda Thompson's book.
I also rewatched the Elvis Aloha from Hawaii special, a huge event in television in 1973, and what some might call the last we saw of Elvis before he began his downward spiral. I caught a new documentary on the Elvis Comeback Special because, well, I always dug him in that leather!
For young people today, it may be hard to understand why Elvis meant what he did to music and to the world. But for a woman born in 1975, just two years before Elvis died, I still remember the gift he gave to us all.
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