Riley Keough Helps Mom Lisa Marie Presley Emerge From Elvis' Shadow
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A few years before she died, Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of Elvis, decided to write a memoir. Now, this was a big deal because for most of her life, Presley lived in her father's shadow. And for years, she'd tell people she thought her life wasn't interesting enough to fill a book. Well, after years of chronicling on her own, Presley asked her daughter Riley to help her finish what she had documented.

A month later, at the age of 54, Presley died, and Riley made the decision to complete what her mother started by finishing the book. It's titled From Here to the Great Unknown, a lyric from the song Where No One Stands Alone, featured on a 2018 compilation album of Lisa Marie singing duets with archival recordings of her father's favorite gospel songs. I do not know where to lead her

Every day from here to the great home. Take a hand on Easter when stars are gone.

Riley Keough joins me today to talk about her mother's memoir. She's the book's co-author, which gives the reader this broader lens into the Presley family and a raw portrait of intergenerational sorrows. Keough is a producer, director, and actor who starred in films like Mad Max, Fury Road, Zola, and the miniseries Daisy Jones and the Six. She's the sole owner of Graceland and trustee of her mother Lisa Marie Presley's estate.

Riley Keough, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you for having me. This book, Riley, it's mostly your mother's story in her own words, and it bounces back and forth between your mom's perspective and your perspective. And I just want to tell you that it is so beautifully done. Thank you. I appreciate it.

This title, it comes from that stirring gospel song we just heard of your mom singing with a recording of her late father, Elvis. What meaning does that particular lyric, From Here to the Great Unknown, hold for you? We were trying to figure out the title of the book. And me and the publisher would go back and forth with different titles. And he sent over From Here to the Great Unknown. And

And at first I kind of was a little bit resistant to it because my mom was a little resistant to singing that duet. Did she share why? I think she always felt hesitant to do Elvis things. I don't know why. I think she just didn't, you know, she obviously loved her father, but I think that

She was trying to have her own identity, so I think she often would get asked to do duets or cover Elvis songs, and I think that she would kind of buck up against that. But then she ended up recording this song and had a very emotional experience doing it, and she was really happy she did it. And it was very cathartic, and it's a beautiful song. The lyrics from Here to the Great Unknown, I guess, represented for me...

Something I think about a lot, which is like, where did she go? Where did they go? Where do people go when they pass away? And it's just something when you experience grief or a lot of grief that I think about a lot or I consider. You lost your mom in 2023. You lost your brother three years prior. And you lived with a mother who held the grief of losing her father all of her life.

And as you said, grappled with doing Elvis things, but also really had the task of holding the candle to his legacy. You know, being able, she was the main spokesperson for him. And I keep using the term raw to describe to people the way your mother shared her life in this book is,

And I get the sense that we're getting a glimpse of her personality because it feels like she was a straight shooter. She was very matter-of-fact, but she was also really vulnerable. Is that an accurate way to describe her? Definitely. I think that she was very complicated, and it's hard to describe her. There were moments in the book where I was trying to, but it just never seemed effective. And it's because she was very complicated, and she was...

very candid and honest and raw and tough and wild and rebellious, but she also had a side to her that was very sort of childlike and naive as well. And one of the most loving people I've ever met, but also I don't know if she could ever receive love, which was interesting. Yeah.

Can you tell us more about the tapes that she left behind? Were they audio diaries, or was she talking to someone? She was talking to someone. It was basically a series of interviews, and she was talking to him, and it started at her very first memory and went up until my brother's death. But I think there were about 16 tapes in total, and they were just labeled, you know,

you know, when she meets Danny, Lisa at 10 years old. So, so I had this sort of, yeah, I had all of these tapes and, uh, and it's, it's just very conversational. How did you prepare yourself to listen to them? I received the tapes and then I kind of put it off for a while because I just, I, I was like, this is going to be like, why am I doing this to myself? Um, and,

But the project of the book really felt like a duty to me. It's not something that comes, it's a little bit out of my comfort zone to kind of do this sort of thing.

And I think that it felt like just a task that had to be done. So then I think I approached it in that way. It was a task because you knew your mother wanted this to be done. She had been hesitant for a long time, though, to tell her story. Yeah, I think she's had a complicated relationship with existing in the public eye and wanting to connect to people and share her story, but also really not enjoying having attention on her.

I want to play one of the recordings. And in this clip, just to set it up, your mother is expressing why she feels it's finally time to share her story and what she wants her book to do for readers. And I just want to note before we play it that the recording is a little bit muffled, but you can hear what she has to say. Let's listen. I think that my story, my autobiography and all my stories and the things that happened in my life, I think that they

people will have gone through some of the same things and probably be like that really helped me which would be more interesting for me and more fulfilling for me is to hear my book help people and what I've endured through my life and what I've gone through helps people.

That was Lisa Marie Presley in her own words talking about her decision to write a memoir. And Riley, what really perked my ears up in that clip is that when your mom says by telling her story, it will help her because it will allow us to understand her. And I was wondering about that because what comes across in this book is that

In life, maybe it was less about people misunderstanding her and more about people not being able to see her outside of her father's image. Was that something you grew up knowing and understanding? I grew up, like, in a time where my mother was on the front page of every kind of, like, trash magazine, you know? So it was... This is the 90s, yeah. Yeah, and it was pretty aggressive. If we'd go grocery shopping, it was like...

And every store would be some kind of headline that was pretty outrageous, you know, that was, you know, typical back then to speak about people and women that way. But it was, you know, about her weight, about her father. I don't know, just horrible things. And so...

I definitely, you know, could conceptualize that the world didn't portray her accurately or necessarily care to or know her as an individual person. I grew up in that time period, too. And I remember on every newsstand in the grocery store at checkout, your mom's picture would be there or your grandfather. Yeah.

I never considered or thought that your mother would actually be in a grocery store with her kids and see it herself. How did she protect you, or what would she say to you all when you would see those images? It was so common that, I mean, it was kind of an eye roll, you know? Sometimes there was a phase where she would have them all brought to the house so she could keep up with...

This was a little bit later, maybe the late 90s or early 2000s, where she really wanted to know everything that everyone was saying. I would come home from school and on the counter it would be like Us Weekly, People Magazine, Star, National Enquirer laid out in a row on the front. And all the pages would be tabbed in colors so she could read.

you know, see everything that was being said. And I just was very used to it, I think. Your grandfather, Elvis, died when she was nine. It feels like we're transported to her nine-year-old self in the book because I can feel the stars in her eyes as she writes about the way her father doted on her. And I would love for you to read a passage that illustrates this, if you don't mind. Sure. Sure.

Twenty minutes before my dad was due to walk on stage in Las Vegas, my mom told him I'm leaving, and he still had to go out and perform. I was four when they split up, but I remained so close with my dad. I knew how much I was adored, how much he loved me. I knew that he knew that I hated, hated, hated leaving him. Hated, hated, hated going to my mother's new home in Los Angeles. Loathed it. He got a house there to be closer to me.

When I was in LA, he'd call all hours of the night to talk to me or just to leave a message on my phone. I was taking piano lessons there at one point and he would want to hear them so my mother would put the phone on the piano so he could hear me playing. I would do anything he wanted. I would sing, I would dance. He always wanted me to sing. I didn't love it but I knew it made him happy so I did it. He wanted me to learn green sleeves on the piano so I did.

He could have said, chop both your feet off, and I would have done it just to make him happy. Thank you for reading that, Riley. Your mom goes on to describe how she'd go back and forth between living at Graceland with your dad and extended family and her mother, Priscilla, as she mentioned, in Los Angeles. She doesn't say this, but after her father died, there's this feeling in the way she describes her life, like she's parentless, like kind of unmoored, you know, with this

yearning for a parental figure. Is that an accurate description? I think that she was so close with her father, like she was a daddy's girl, and he was everything to her, that the loss of him was so great. And I think that dictated the relationship she had with her mother. How would you describe her relationship with Priscilla?

I was very complicated. Priscilla was a very young mother, and obviously my grandmother was living in this world that was totally overwhelming and unusual, and she was having to be Elvis's wife. And I think there was a lot of pressure on her to be perfect and to be the perfect sort of wife and woman that ever lived. You know, I think she really felt that pressure, and she was very young.

And I think that my mom and her were very different. Like, my mother was very wild and unruly and rebellious and radical, kind of. And she was very, you know, well-mannered and perfect and, I don't know, just kind of the opposite of my mom. And so I think they would butt heads often. And my mom was like a very rebellious teenager and...

I mean, I also think that that had to do with the fact that she was in grief, too. And so I think she was acting out, maybe. She was acting out. She was angry at the universe for taking her father away. And I think that everything and everyone was not him. One of the most heartbreaking moments of your mother's life was when her dad died. And she writes about it with such painstaking clarity.

She was actually there at Graceland that day in 1977. What did she share about that day? It was something she always felt protective over, that story. I always got the sense that she would never share the details of that day publicly. But then when I got the tapes, I heard that she did want to share, you know, the details of that day. And so she just goes through the whole sequence of events in the book and

She basically came into my grandfather's room and, and he was in his bathroom and she saw him in there. And then the, somebody grabbed her and brought her out into her room and the ambulance came. And I think she says she went to smoke a cigarette. She was nine years old. Um, and then she watched him get brought down the stairs, um, on a gurney. And, uh, she, she kind of says she remembers his seeing his shoes or his hand or something like that. And, uh,

He gets wheeled out of the house, and then a few moments later, his father, Vernon, basically, she hears him yelling and saying, you know, my baby's gone. And she said something like, what'd you say, or something, and I think Vernon said, you know, your daddy's gone. And that was something she did tell us, like, the...

Words that Vernon used are something I remember from growing up. Him saying, you know, your daddy's gone, your daddy's gone. I remember that from being very little.

One of the things she also writes about in that section where she details that day is almost like this out-of-body experience for her, watching others in the days after Elvis's death, all of the fans who came to Graceland and they were grieving so deeply for this man. It seems like it almost pushed her outside of her own grief for a moment because she

There's so much to hold when you have the world grieving for the person that's taking care of you. Yeah, the whole world was grieving her father. And she talks about watching people come through the house and people fainting and having to be carried out and ambulances coming to get people. So I think she was kind of for the service and all that, just kind of watching this massive...

ceremony that was like a global experience, kind of. So I think it was a very interesting way to grieve. And I think that it kind of maybe didn't leave her a lot of room for her own grief. How does she process the fandom around Elvis? I mean, she had to hold like other people's really big feelings about him all of her life.

I think she found a lot of comfort in it. I think that because his fans, you know, loved him so dearly, she felt comforted by that. Like it was a shared grief in a way. And I think when she would come home or come to Memphis or go to different ceremonies at Graceland and the fans would hug her or share their grief. It was a shared experience. I actually think she found comfort in it.

You are now the sole owner of Graceland, and your grandmother opened it to the public in the 80s. It became a tourist attraction like no other we've ever seen. It also seemed to heighten this voyeuristic element that had already been there around Elvis's life.

You seem to have this photographic memory of the times you spend with your mother in Elvis's room, which is preserved, but it's closed to the public. What did you see in your mom when you'd visit and hang out there in that room? Well, I would always feel that she was, you know, very happy to be at Graceland in general. Like if we were in Memphis, she just loved it there. She wanted a house there and

It was where she grew up and had some of her best memories as a child and...

So we always had a lot of fun there. We would have dinners there and Thanksgiving, and when the tours were over, obviously, we would hang out in the house, and they would take the ropes down, and it was just like a family home for us. We would hang out in the living rooms, and me and my brother would run downstairs and play pool with our cousins. So we got to experience it as a home growing up a lot. Only, really. That was the only way my mother would spend time in there. Yeah.

And her father's room, which has never been part of the tour, her room and her father's room are upstairs in the house. And it's really only been a few people who are allowed up there and just our family. And she kept a key with her and it was just a place that she went that was like a place of comfort for her. I think she really felt her father in the room.

Our guest today is Riley Keough. We're talking with her about the memoir she co-authored with her late mother, Lisa Marie Presley, From Here to the Great Unknown. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

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Hey, it's Mike and Ian. We're the hosts of How to Do Everything from the team at Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Every week we take your questions and find someone much smarter than us to answer them. Questions like, how do I safely jump out of a moving vehicle? How do I dangerously jump out of a moving vehicle? We can't help you, but we will find someone who can. Listen to the How to Do Everything podcast from NPR.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Riley Keough. She is the co-author of the new book, From Here to the Great Unknown, which she co-authored with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, who recorded the details of her life for the memoir before she died in 2023.

In the book, Presley shares her memories of the first nine years of her life with her dad, Elvis, the relationship with her mother, Priscilla, her romances, including her short-lived marriage to Michael Jackson, and her search for her voice and place in the world outside of her father's fame. The book is written with alternating sections between Presley and Keough.

Riley Keough is Lisa Marie Presley's eldest daughter and Elvis' first grandchild, and she's an award-winning actor and producer and the sole owner of Graceland and the trustee of her mother's estate.

Riley, you and your mom, you touch on a lot of the details that people want to know. Her relationship with her dad and mom, her music career, which I want to talk more about, her love life, including her being married to Michael Jackson, which we'll get to later.

And meeting and marrying your dad, who you talk a lot about, Danny Keough, and people actually didn't want your parents to be together. Your mom writes about how your grandma, Priscilla, wanted her to be with someone more established. But I should note that your dad was also hesitant, right? Because he could see all that came with being with Elvis's daughter. What do you think drew them to each other? My dad was just like a bass player from Oregon, from like a small town. Yeah.

who made his way to California by like selling photos of a, you know, a volcano or something crazy. Like I can't remember the story, but he, yeah. And he like hitchhiked his way down and he came from a very small town in Oregon. And I think her, her, the fame and all of that really, he, it's scared him a bit. And I don't think he was interested in that kind of thing. He just, all he cared about was music. Um,

And she was kind of obsessed with him, I think, because he was, I mean, because they were in love. But also, I think she could perceive that he was, like, one of the few people in her life who didn't have an agenda or want something from her other than her, which wasn't common in her life. Yeah.

And he was, you know, he tried to leave her a few times because I think that he kind of got the sense that, you know, her world would suck him in and he wouldn't really have his own life, essentially. An identity. An identity, mm-hmm. How old were you when your mother left your father for Michael Jackson? I was six. What memories do you have of that time? Well, I remember I was sitting on her lap and

We were in Florida and she told me she was divorcing my dad. And I just remember sobbing and saying, that means he's not my dad anymore. And she said, no, that's not what that means. Of course he's your father. He's always going to be your father. And I remember that pain well. But then they were pretty good about it.

I guess like what's now consciously uncoupling. And he was always around and he lived in our house. And, you know, I mean, my mom left him for Michael. So he was devastated. I think she felt a lot of guilt about that, about leaving my dad. You wrote in the book that you spent more time growing up in Neverland than Graceland, right? That's right. What are some of your most potent memories of staying there?

Mostly playing with my cousins or my in-law cousins, you know, Michael's nephews and nieces, running around kind of wild. Probably similar to Graceland, actually, you know, just kind of running free on the land. And, you know, Neverland was a little more extravagant than Graceland, like in terms of there was a lot more animals and there were rides and things. So as a kid, it was pretty fun for us to run around Graceland.

Did I get this right that you wrote in the book something like, you woke up to a giraffe in your... Was that right? Yeah, I always forget if I put that in or took it out, but yes, I woke up to a giraffe. He had animals on the property, but I don't know why on this day the giraffe was right outside the window because typically I think they're in their areas, but it was a really memorable moment. Yeah.

What was your relationship with Michael Jackson like? You were afraid when your mom first told you that he might replace your dad. But once you got to know him, how would you describe it? I think my mom says something in the book that people might kind of pass over, which is really kind of indicative of the whole thing, which is that the version of Michael that was in our lives or that she was with was different.

was different to, I think, the version that he presented on TV. And even the way he spoke was different. And probably with Elvis, too. There's the version of Elvis Presley for the world, and then there's the version at home. And I think my experience with Michael was he felt like a human being and spoke differently. I remember the first time I saw him on TV, his register was higher, and that's not how I was used to hearing him. And I remember...

thinking that was interesting. So I think that in my life, he felt like my mom's husband, like a stepfather. There's an entire chapter devoted to Michael, and she makes clear that she loved Michael and that their romance was real.

Did she ever talk about, though, the possibility that MJ could also be using her or the perception and how she felt about the perception that he might be using this as a publicity stunt? Because he was in the midst of this child sex abuse, these allegations at the time as well. I think that my answer to that is that their love was very genuine and they were in love and they were in a real relationship and

slept in bed together and were very normal but I think that when you're that famous there's a lot of people around and I think both camps kind of had people in their ears about each other and you know my mom started to perceive that maybe he was on drugs and he started to maybe understand

get the idea that she was onto him maybe being on drugs. And then I think there was paranoia. I think my grandmother was apprehensive about the marriage and brought that idea up to my mom. And I think it just kind of exploded.

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest today is Riley Keough. We're talking about the new memoir she co-authored with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, who died in 2023. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

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Truth. Independence. Fairness. Transparency. Respect. Excellence. This is NPR. This is Fresh Air, and today we're talking to Riley Keough, actress, producer, and co-author of the new book, From Here to the Great Unknown, which she wrote with her late mother, Lisa Marie Presley, who died in 2023 at 54. You know, Riley, I was wondering, because...

your mother died before she could finish the memoir, there are big sections of her life that are missing. Were there gaps in her life that you had to fill in? And what aspects of her life, really, that you feel were most absent? I think that because when she did these tapes, this was in the last sort of five years of her life, and it was the hardest time for her. It was just post her addiction and divorce. And

And then my brother died. So when she did the tapes, I think that she was coming from a place of sort of hopelessness or like heartbreak. And there was a lot of her life that was like really beautiful. And most of our lives, honestly, were very fun and joyful and wild and eccentric and colorful and beautiful.

and poetic and just so special. And so I felt like that was missing. And I tried to, you know, add a little bit of that. I don't know if I... I honestly don't know if enough of that was in there, you know, when I think back, because I think back to...

Our lives together. And at the end of the book, I say, like, I know we all would have done it again. And I know that, you know, because it was a really harsh turn when she started taking drugs at 40. And prior to that, it was like kind of a magical, like my brother and I would always say, like, we're so lucky with how, you know, how much fun we had growing up.

Yeah, well, I chuckled about how she really didn't make you guys go to school if you didn't want to. There was one story I think you told where she drove you to school and you and your brother were like, please, we don't want to go. And so she turned around and took you for ice cream. That was like all the time. It was a constant thing. And my dad was like, so, you know, my dad...

is very intellectual and reads a lot and is really smart and cerebral and also emotional. But, like, you know, education was important to him. And to her, she just, she didn't care for school at all. So she would, you know, we would arrive and go, no, no, we don't, you know, we want to stay with you today. And she would, you know, just...

turn around, take us to the toy store, take us to get ice cream, take us to the studio with her, and we would just spend the day. And yeah, I mean, that happened so often that I didn't graduate high school. Do you ever have plans of maybe getting your GED? I always want to. It's something that like, it's a real, it's really hard because I write and I think I was somebody who would have wanted to go to finish school and go to college. And

My education really suffered because of the way that we lived. And I really see it when I'm writing, especially like the concepts. Like my vocabulary doesn't match. I can't translate the concepts I have sometimes when I'm writing. And it really holds me back. And so I do think about that.

If you're just joining us, my guest today is Riley Keough. In the next part of our conversation, we'll be having a brief discussion about suicide. Now, if you're having thoughts of suicide, help is available by calling or texting 988, which is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Again, the number to call or text is 988. I want to devote some time to talk about your brother, if that's okay? Sure. Sure.

Ben died in 2020 at the age of 27 by suicide. And Riley, I just want to thank you for pouring yourself out on the page in honor of your brother, because anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide can understand. And I felt the way you wrote about him put language to the depth of grief. If you don't mind, can I have you read an excerpt about him that your mom wrote? Mm-hmm.

Ben was very similar to his grandfather. Very, very, very, very, and in every way. He even looked like him. Ben was so much like him that it scared me. I didn't want to tell him because I thought it was too much to put on a kid. We were very close. He'd tell me everything. Ben and I had the same relationship that my father and his mother had. It was a generational f***ing cycle. Gladys loved my dad so much that she drank herself to death worrying about him.

And then my dad had his demons and acted out on them. I have everything in me that wants to do the same thing. And then my son's got the same genetic makeup. I feel like he's more genetically me than Danny. Ben didn't stand a f***ing chance. And your mom, when she refers to Gladys, she's referring to her grandmother. And Danny is you and your brother's dad. You were the first to receive the call that your brother had died by suicide. And, um...

Your first thoughts were, my mom won't survive this. You felt that after he passed, even though she was resolute in staying present for you and your sisters, that it was only a matter of time. I was open to her surviving, but I felt like how could she also? He was like, I mean, all of her children were, you know,

her entire world and purpose, but I think that they had a very special connection. And I just couldn't imagine a world where she could find it in her to want to be here. You know, I think she found a way to begrudgingly be here for her children, but I didn't see a version of the future where she

you know, okay with being here without my brother. Let me just mention again, if you're having thoughts of suicide, help is available by calling or texting 988, which is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Again, that number to call or text is 988. I want to ask you a little bit more about your mother's music career and her singing. She didn't come out with her own music until the early 2000s.

What was her relationship to music and singing? I mean, it was everything to her. You know, when she's talking about getting through her grief and all of that in the book, she kind of talks about, you know, listening to Pink Floyd and like that music was kind of her escape. And I think that it was like a real release for her. And then when she started writing, like the only reason she began to write and do music was, you know, it was totally personal. It was therapeutic for her.

Record execs, though, were always trying to get her to countrify her music. Yeah. Did she ever talk about that? Maybe the frustration she felt? Because, I mean, she was like a, you know, she had the edge in her music. It's so funny because, like, Elvis isn't very country, you know? I think maybe they're trying to appeal to a group of people, but, you know, it's rock and roll. Yeah.

She would come home all the time from the studio and she'd always play us her demos in the car and blast it really loud. And we'd sit in there and I remember a few times where there'd be a song she'd write that I'd love. And she'd come home and go, you know, this is the new version. And it would be like, like twangy, you know, country, nothing against country. I love country. But like it wasn't what she wanted to do.

And I would say something as a child. I'd say, you know, I don't like that. I don't like the guitar. I don't like this version. And she didn't either. And she was like, oh, God, you know, they're just trying to get me to do this. They want me to cover Elvis songs. And so it was difficult. But, you know, she had so much fun. She loved being on tour. We had, like, the best time ever. We all went on tour together. I would go. Me and my brother would go with him. My dad played bass there.

She was married to her husband at the time, who was her MD. And so we'd all go on tour together. And it was like a really fun experience as a family. She loved it. But I think she also said in the book, it was really disorienting to look out in the audience and see Elvis impersonators. Yeah.

She used to, before shows, like, peek out the side of the curtain and find where they would be so that she wasn't surprised when she went out there. And she would just peek around and kind of go, okay, there's one in the back, there's one over there, like, so she wasn't shocked. Because it was disorienting because it, like, she's seeing images of her father, but a caricature of her father in many ways. Yeah, I mean, it's like some kind of wild fever dream to...

go out on stage and perform to your dead father, you know, or like someone in costume. It's bizarre. I think that the way people, people's relationship to him was as if he was like this sort of like God, you know, and so I don't think there was a lot of humanizing going on with her. I think it was beyond, it's not that they had, you know, ill intentions. I think that

They were just fans. And she just maybe didn't realize how weird that would be for her. Well, Riley, thank you for being so gracious with your time and sharing your story and your mother's story. And I'm so sorry for your losses, but I thank you so much for your bravery and talking about it with us. Thank you. I appreciate you talking to me.

Riley Keough is an actress, producer, and co-author of the new book From Here to the Great Unknown, which she wrote with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. Presley died in 2023 at the age of 54. Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Betsy Lerner's debut novel, Shred Sisters. This is Fresh Air.

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This is Fresh Air. Betsy Lerner has written a popular guide for writers and two memoirs, including The Bridge Ladies, about joining her mother's bridge club, which has been meeting weekly for over 50 years. Her new book, Shred Sisters, is also her debut novel. Book critic Maureen Corrigan has this review.

I was in the mood for a novel about family relationships, something Cheever-esque. Maybe I thought a sharp, contained work of fiction would be a temporary antidote to a world that feels out of control.

Because I admired Betsy Lerner's 2016 memoir, The Bridge Ladies, I thought her new debut novel, Shred Sisters, might just be the right choice. Turns out, I landed on a good book for the wrong reasons.

Shred Sisters is indeed incisive and wry, but given its central subject, an upper-middle-class Jewish suburban family all but capsized by the mental illness of one of its members, this novel is anything but contained and controlled.

Shred Sisters spans the 1970s through the 1990s and focuses intensely on the relationship between the two Shred Sisters who live with their parents in New Haven, Connecticut.

Amy, the younger sister, is our narrator. She's small, shy, a scrupulous obeyer of rules. One of her favorite games as a kid is one she calls Movies, where she scatters garbage on the floor and sweeps it up like a theater usher.

Older sister Olivia, known as Ollie, is the star of the family. She's beautiful, charismatic, and, as becomes increasingly clear during her teenage years, mentally ill. Here are snippets from the opening of the novel, which takes place when Amy is 10 and Ollie is 14. Amy recalls that,

I was afraid to wake my dad. He was stretched out on the couch in his den late afternoon. His brown loafers kicked off on the shag carpet, resting on each other like rabbits. This better be good, Amy, he said. By the time he reached Ollie, she was soaked in blood.

"'Ollie had dared me to jump on the couch with her. "'Using the thick cushions as a trampoline, "'she made a swishing sound as she jumped, "'touching the ceiling and dunking an imaginary basketball.'

Only when she took a jump shot from the side, not realizing the power in her legs, she crashed into the picture window behind the couch. For a second there was silence. Then the window splintered into a web of shards that rained down on my sister. Later, Ali joked that she looked like a giant tampon.

That opening gives fair warning of the erratic periods of chaos and exhaustion that will define the Shred family's life for decades, especially as Ollie begins stealing things, raging, and disappearing. She's eventually sent to a psychiatric hospital that Amy and her parents tactfully referred to as The Place.

One of the aspects of coping with mental illness that Lerner vividly captures is the limits of 1970s and 80s psychiatry to treat what Amy later speculates is bipolar disorder. The Shred parents never get a diagnosis for Ollie. Amy, left on her own, reads popular books of the era to try to grasp what's going on.

They all had a girl on the cover, Amy tells us, brunette and brooding. Go ask Alice, the bell jar. None of the girls reminded me of Ollie. After two years, Ollie is discharged, unchanged, and disappears for even longer stretches.

Drained of energy for each other, the Shred parents, Amy says, split slowly, like the subterranean forces that pulled apart the jagged coasts of South America and Africa together.

As she did in The Bridge Ladies, Lerner elevates what may sound like yet another pop saga of endurance, measured recovery, and forgiveness into a closely observed story that's ragged and wry.

The final two-thirds of this novel focus on Amy herself, the usher in the shadows who spent decades powerlessly observing and cleaning up after this family movie ended.

Change, as we know, is hard. But there's a moment where the adult Amy, who's been demoralized by loneliness and career failure, spontaneously walks into a hair salon. She's pulled in by a sign that reads, Never give up on your hair. These are the kind of revelatory, ordinary human moments Lerner captures with precision.

As an affirmation, never give up on your hair, turns out to be a more modest way to declare, I will survive. Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner.

On tomorrow's show, Palestinian poet and essayist Mossab Abu Toha. He's written a series of personal essays for The New Yorker about his experiences living in Gaza during the war. His most recent essay is called The Gaza We Leave Behind. He's now living in the U.S. His debut book of poetry was a finalist for the National Book Award, and he has a book of new poems. I hope you can join us.

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