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

Kim Rich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

Kim Rich's parents came to Alaska to get rich, and ended up working the gambling and B-joints of Anchorage. In probing the mysteries of their lives, Rich comes to terms with her own.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this engaging memoir, the author, a journalist raised in Alaska and now living in New York City, probes her late parents' past. Rich was 15 years old in 1973 when her father, Johnny Rich Jr., a well-known mobster in Anchorage, was murdered. Her mother, Ginger, a former stripper, had died the previous year. Although they both grew up in New England, Johnny and Ginger met in Los Angeles in the late 1950s. Soon they embarked for Alaska, where Johnny became a big man about town and Ginger would soon begin her sojourn through a series of mental institutions. Rich traces and plumbs official records to capture the minutiae and major moments of her parents' lives, including their deaths. Along the way, she comes to terms with her relationships with her parents, especially her father: "Now I'm beginning to like being Johnny's girl." Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Don't be fooled by the misleading title, which conjures up images of an Alaskan version of Teresa Carpenter's Mob Girl ( LJ 3/1/92). Although Rich, as the only child of a gambler and a stripper, grew up "amid the denizens of Anchorage's nightlife--pimps, con men, gamblers, prostitutes, heroin addicts, strippers," she has written not a sensationalistic account of the criminal world but a compassionate memoir, much like Geoffrey Douglas's Class ( LJ 10/1/92), that seeks to make sense of her parents' failed lives. For Johnny Rich and Ginger Chiaravalle, the B-bars and gambling dens of 1950s and 1960s Anchorage were the quick ticket to the American Dream. But Ginger's career as a stripper and prostitute eventually triggered her insanity (the book's most moving section recounts her last years dying of cancer in a mental institution), and Johnny's schemes finally resulted in his murder in 1973. Rich describes in rich detail her unusual and unstable childhood but skimps on her life after her parents' deaths. How did she survive? Why did she become a journalist? Perhaps she can tell us in the next book. Strongly recommended.
- Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Alaska Northwest Books (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882405241
• ISBN-13: 978-0882405247
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #537,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderfully moving memoir of a daughter searching for home, September 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Johnny's Girl: A Daughter's Memoir of Growing Up in Alaska's Underworld (Hardcover)

I read this book after seeing the movie 'Johnny's Girl' which is based on Kim Rich's life story. As I suspected, the book offered a fuller portrait of the struggles Rich endured and the sense of survial she must have felt. Her writing style is fluid and funny and moving and I recommend this book to readers who value excellent literarily nonfiction. I look forward to her next book!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent insight into seamy side of early Anchorage, October 31, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Johnny's Girl: A Daughter's Memoir of Growing Up in Alaska's Underworld (Hardcover)

This is a very interesting book for anyone who has wondered what life was like in Anchorage prior to the oil boom. It the story of a small time punk who proceeds to get involved in a variety of cheap stunts that all revolve around either gambling, prostitution or racketeering. While it sounds depressing, actually it is a glimpse into the highly spirited society (admittedly the underbelly) that made Alaska such an exciting place to live. For anyone who thinks Alaska is all about gortex or salmon, this is a must read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not exactly the parents from the Brady Bunch, August 7, 2003

By 

saskatoonguy (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Johnny's Girl: A Daughter's Memoir of Growing Up I (Paperback)

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.