My Maggie [Hardcover]

Rich King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2007

My Maggie is a rare and real love story. Rich and Maggie King were two people who never gave up on each other a testament to a love few have the will to attain.

She was his childhood sweetheart and wife of thirty two years. Diagnosed with hearing loss at the age of four, she wore cumbersome hearing aids and felt the humiliation of being different. Slowly, an insidious disease robbed her of vision. She fought three different cancers, changed careers in the middle of her life and fought to realize her dreams. Yet, underneath these great challenges, there was an incredible love shared by two people. It was cemented by adversity and reached a near perfect spiritual connection. They lived a classic old fashioned love story.

King shares one of the most powerful, complex, and memorable love stories ever written. It is an American story of great heroism, courage, and devotion. Maggie was a woman who understood how to lead a happy life and then led it, in spite of the challenges placed in front of her. My Maggie is great drama, great passion, and great fun. It is a book written with a love so immense it almost defies description.

75% of the royalties from this book will be donated to:

The Lighthouse for the Blind The American Cancer Society

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Emmy Award–winning sportscaster King has written a bittersweet love story that will resonate with many readers (and may even remind some of Calvin Trillin's bestselling About Alice). King's wife, Maggie Smith, born in 1948, was his childhood sweetheart, whom he recalls as an awkward tomboy with hearing aid wires tangled in her dress at the play lot and later a blossoming beauty. Married in 1970, they stayed crazy in love for 32 years until her death from cancer in 2002. Those were challenging years spent overcoming adversity: She was a woman who battled poverty, severe hearing loss at an early age, progressive blindness, melanoma, breast cancer and finally ovarian cancer. Yet she was the happiest person I've ever known.Remembering the happy times, King also covers their fears as darkness and death loomed. He details diagnoses and looks back at such frightening moments as Maggie's fall from a train platform in downtown Chicago. Along with the sad setbacks, he captures Maggie's free spirit and her childlike zest for living. People with disabilities and those in relationships with them will find this an inspirational book. 15 pages of b&w and color photos. (Two thirds of royalties will go to the American Cancer Society and the Chicago Lighthouse.) (Oct. 13)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Love is the most essential factor in helping a child or adult adjust to blindness or any severe disability. This book clearly demonstrates the power of love. It is obvious that Maggie was loved. Rich's devotion to Maggie is reflected in her successful adjustment to deaf blindness. --JAMES M. KESTELOOT, President/Executive Director, The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind

My Maggie is a remarkable love story that communicates the true meaning of courage and devotion. While it is a sad story, it forces us to remember the strength of a marriage lies at its core, not at the surface. --JERRY REINSDORF, Owner Chicago Bulls and White Sox

Love is the most essential factor in helping a child or adult adjust to blindness or any severe disability. This book clearly demonstrates the power of love. It is obvious that Maggie was loved. Rich's devotion to Maggie is reflected in her successful adjustment to deaf blindness. --JAMES M. KESTELOOT, President/Executive Director, The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind

My Maggie is a remarkable love story that communicates the true meaning of courage and devotion. While it is a sad story, it forces us to remember the strength of a marriage lies at its core, not at the surface. --JERRY REINSDORF, Owner Chicago Bulls and White Sox

Rich King has written one of the most powerful stories of life, love, and loss you will ever read. His lovely, courageous Maggie will be forever etched in your heart and mind. --JOHN D. CALLAWAY, WTTW Chicago Public Television

“My Maggie is a remarkable love story that communicates the true meaning of courage and devotion. While it is a sad story, it forces us to remember the strength of a marriage lies at its core, not at the surface.” --JERRY REINSDORF, Owner Chicago Bulls and White Sox

“Love is the most essential factor in helping a child or adult adjust to blindness or any severe disability. This book clearly demonstrates the power of love. It is obvious that Maggie was loved. Rich's devotion to Maggie is reflected in her successful adjustment to deaf blindness.” --JAMES M. KESTELOOT, President/Executive Director, The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 285 pages
• Publisher: Rich King Books; First Edition edition (October 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977628167
• ISBN-13: 978-0977628162
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,046,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary comeback(s), extraordinary courage, January 5, 2008

By 

John A. Sarkett "author -- "Extraordinary... (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Maggie (Hardcover)

Someone once said of my book, "Extraordinary Comebacks," that when you're feeling down, 'read a few of these stories to see what's possible.' My Maggie is the nonpareil story in that regard, and if we're fortunate enough to create a volume two, this is a story that must be included.

No one, and we mean no one we've encountered in these researches of comeback stories, did more with less than the extraordinarily courageous, indomitable Maggie King. As a counselor, Maggie had the power to change lives, and now that Rich has captured her essence in this biography, she will keep on doing that for many years to come.

As Rich King would say simply, she would like that.

You see members of your TV news teams every day. They come into your home, like family or friends. You think you know them (you don't), and that their lives are pretty charmed (sometimes), and breezy and effortless and glib as the jokes at the end of the late night itself (not for sportscaster Rich King or his Maggie).

Behind the video image, Rich King was bearing the weight of the world for many years, and we, his viewers, never knew it. His wife Maggie was engaged for years in a titanic struggle against blindness, and hearing loss, and all that entailed, as as a result, so, too, was he. When breast cancer, then ovarian cancer joined the battle, it was nothing less than a life and death struggle.

This book will knock you flat on your back. It will make you appreciate every moment that you have your sight, your hearing....and your life.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brought Back Lots of Chicago Memories, January 14, 2008

By 

Chuck Bedord (Silicon Valley, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Maggie (Hardcover)

As a Chicagoan, I really loved this book. It characterizes the city's ethnicity and cultures, but this story will be of interest to anyone who has a friend or relative struggling with a serious illness.

This book is actually a "Love Story" about people I know and think highly of. It tells the story of 2 people who met in grade school and fell more in love as times went on - both good and bad. It also tells about the "support group" of friends surrounding them and the big difference it made in their lives.

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars review, October 23, 2007

By 

C. Versema - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: My Maggie (Hardcover)

It was excellent! I would definately recommend the book. The author wrote it like he was talking directly to me.