SOFTLY, AS I LEAVE YOU

Navigating life beyond the King’s shadow.

In the nearly half-century since Elvis Presley’s death, the public’s persistent fascination with the King of Rock ’n’ Roll has sustained attention for those within his orbit. Priscilla Presley, having gained renewed visibility following Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla—the latter based on her 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me—returns once more to this well-traversed narrative. She recounts their courtship (beginning when she was 14 and Elvis 24) through their brief six-year marriage that ended with her quest to forge an identity beyond Elvis’ influence: “I left the love of my life because I could no longer endure our way of life. I had to find my own life before I could figure out how Elvis fit into it. I left as gently as I could, but there was no way to do it without pain.” The memoir eventually shifts focus, chronicling her subsequent journey—love affairs; an acting career that included roles on Dallas and in The Naked Gun movies; raising daughter Lisa Marie and son Navarone; her relationships with her four grandchildren (including actress Riley Keough); and profound family tragedies, including the deaths of her grandson Benjamin and Lisa Marie. “The Presley family has endured a particularly painful kind of loss….For generations, we Presleys have had to bury our children.” While maintaining an engaging voice throughout and offering colorful anecdotes about her entertainment career and personal life, the memoir nonetheless reveals an underlying reality: Even decades later, her narrative and public identity remain inextricably tethered to her famous ex-husband, a connection this latest work both acknowledges and reaffirms. “The more than four decades of living without him have taught me how rare and extraordinary he was as a human being. How rare and extraordinary our love for each other was. I have never felt anything remotely like it since.”

A candid memoir that both embraces and remains captive to the Elvis legacy.