LIFE OF RILEY

DAISY JONES & THE SIX PROPELLED RILEY KEOUGH TO STARDOM EVEN AS SHE COPED WITH THE DEATH OF HER MOTHER, LISA MARIE PRESLEY, AND A LEGAL BATTLE WITH HER GRANDMOTHER, PRISCILLA. NOW THE ACTOR, FILMMAKER, AND NEW MOTHER IS CHASING PEACE AND CLARITY AND, IMPROBABLY, FINDING THEM

- BRITT HENNEMUTH

HER GRANDFATHER DIED BEFORE SHE WAS BORN, BUT HIS HOUSE IN MEMPHIS STAYED IN THE FAMILY.

Graceland. Years ago, Riley Keough and her mom, Lisa Marie Presley, would visit for Thanksgiving with Keough’s brother and sisters. They would stay at the official hotel, and when the tourists departed the legendary home for the day, they’d go over and hang out, drive golf carts around the grounds, and celebrate the season together. “When Elvis’s chefs were alive, they used to still cook dinner for us, which was really special,” she tells me. “It was very Southern: greens and fried catfish and fried chicken and hush puppies. Cornbread and beans. Banana pudding.”

It’s an early evening in May—Keough’s 34th birthday, as it happens—and we’re in a hotel lobby outside St. Gallen, Switzerland, hoping a waiter will materialize. The place is nearly empty. An elderly woman sleeps in a wheelchair. A bartender swats flies away from a sweating cheese plate. A pianist is attempting to enliven happy hour with a classical rendition of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” The chords reverberate around the vast, sterile rotunda.