Johnny's Girl: A Daughter's Memoir of Growing Up I - Paperback

by Kim Rich (Author)

Johnny's Girl the nationally acclaimed memoir of growing up in Alaska's underworld as the only child of gambler John F. "Johnny" Rich and exotic dancer, Frances "Ginger" Rich. It chronicles Alaska's mean streets and her parent's tragic lives that were cut short.

Kim Rich was an ordinary girl trapped in an extraordinary childhood, someone who dreamed of going to parties and getting good grades while living in an after-hours hell of gamblers, pimps, and con men. She longed for normalcy, yet she was inescapably her father's child, and she had no choice but to grow up fast. Her mother, who suffered from mental illness, was a stripper and B-girl: her father was a major player in the underworld of Anchorage, Alaska in the sixties, a city flush with newfound oil money. Only after her father was gruesomely murdered when she was 15, and Kim became a journalist, was she able to fill in the missing pieces of one American dream gone horribly wrong. Kim's true story is a tale of a woman's search for her parent's secrets. What she finds is both shocking and tragic, but in the end she's able to discover her true self amid the remnants of her parents' lost lives.

Back Jacket

Gangster's Daughter Takes a Look Back...
She was an ordinary girl trapped in an extraordinary childhood, someone who dreamed of going to parties and getting good grades while living in an after-hours hell of pimps and con men. Kim Rich longed for normalcy, yet she was inescapably her father's child, and she had no choice but to grow up fast. Her mother was a stripper and a B-girl; her father was a major player in the underworld of Anchorage in the sixties, a city flush with new-found oil money. Only after her father was gruesomely murdered and Kim became a journalist was she able to fill in the missing pieces of one American dream gone horribly wrong....What she finds is both shocking and tragic, but in the end she's able to discover her true self amid the remnants of her parents' lost lives.

Author Biography

Born in Hollywood, raised in Anchorage, Alaska and with an MFA degree in writing from Columbia University, Kim M. Rich has taught at Alaska Pacific University. She now lives in the lower 48, outside of Alaska.