Johnny's Girl: A Daughter's Memoir of Growing Up I Review
Kim Rich, who grew up in Anchorage during the 60s and 70s, had the parents from hell: Mom was a prostitute who ended her years in a mental hospital, and dad was an operator of illegal gambling joints who was eventually murdered due to a dispute over ownership of a massage parlor. Her parents tried to create the facade of a respectable middle-class family when Kim was a child, but all for naught; Kim imparts such experiences as being mistaken by the police for a prostitute, at age 13, when they raided her house.
I sense writing the book was an act of therapy for the author, who was trying to reconcile the fact that although her parents loved her, they were, at the core, bad people. It is deeply moving to see how the author struggled to have a normal childhood and normal teenage years despite the underworld characters who surrounded her and the emotional baggage her parents saddled her with. This well-written, articulate book is also a portrayal of what Anchorage, Alaska, was like during the 60s and 70s.
Johnny's Girl: A Daughter's Memoir of Growing Up I Overview
JOHNNY'S GIRL is not the typical Alaskan memoir. Kim Rich came north with her parents who brought their get-rich dreams and schemes to the new state of Alaska. They mined the underside of life in the Last Frontier, working the gambling and B-joints of the raw town of Anchorage. While Rich's father thrived, living one step ahead of the law, her mother became unbalanced. In Rich's book, she probes the mysteries of her parents' lives and comes to terms with her own.
First published in 1993 by William Morrow, JOHNNY'S GIRL was made into a TV movie and later adapted for the stage. We are pleased to make this popular and insightful book, out of print for almost two years, available in a new softbound edition.
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