Introduction:
Although Riley Keough never met her legendary grandfather, Elvis Presley, she has always felt him — not as an icon frozen in time, but as a living presence passed down through her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. That emotional inheritance lies at the heart of From Here to the Great Unknown, the memoir Riley helped bring into the world, and nowhere is it more powerful than in the stories of “upstairs Graceland.”
For Lisa Marie, upstairs Graceland was not a museum or a shrine. It was home. It was where her childhood unfolded quietly, away from screaming fans and flashing cameras. In the memoir, Lisa reveals just how close she was to her father, describing a bond deeper than the public ever imagined. Elvis would often sit in her room late at night, talking softly, laughing, and answering the kinds of innocent questions only a child would dare to ask. Those private moments, untouched by fame, became the emotional foundation of her life.
One small object captures that childhood freedom: Lisa’s worn-out golf cart key. Seeing it decades later reduced her to tears. That key symbolized escape, independence, mischief, and joy — a reminder that even inside one of the most famous homes on earth, a little girl simply wanted to roam, play, and feel normal.
Elvis’s bedroom, just steps from Lisa’s, carried its own silent language. Closed doors meant sleep. Open doors meant Elvis reading, watching television, or talking late into the night. Sometimes, he would wake Lisa up just to take her on a golf cart ride across the pasture to visit her grandfather, Vernon Presley. These were not grand gestures — they were tender, spontaneous acts of a devoted father.
As an adult, Lisa Marie returned to those upstairs rooms with her own children. They slept in Elvis’s bed, finding comfort where she once did. Riley recalls that her mother loved being there — it made her feel close to her father again. And the children felt it too. Upstairs Graceland held a stillness that no tour ever touched, preserved exactly as Elvis left it, filled with his books, his records, his films, and his searching spirit.
One small plaque upstairs bears a poem titled Why God Made Little Girls. Riley admits it always breaks her heart. Its words echo innocence and wonder — a haunting contrast to the pain that later followed Lisa’s life.
Through alternating voices, recordings, and narration, Riley delicately fills in the emotional gaps her mother left behind. The audiobook, featuring Lisa’s own voice, becomes especially devastating — proof that this story is not just remembered, but felt.
In the end, upstairs Graceland is not about secrets. It is about love that survived loss, grief passed from parent to child, and a legend who, beyond the spotlight, was simply a father — sitting on a bed at midnight, listening to his little girl speak.