First published 2010
Alison Arngrim spent seven years playing television's most despised brat, Nellie Oleson, on Little House on the Prairie. Behind the cameras, she navigated Hollywood childhood with eccentric parents: talent manager Thor Arngrim, who represented Liberace, and voice actress Norma MacMillan, who brought Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost to life. Arngrim shares wickedly funny backstage moments, including Michael Landon's underwear-free habits and getting accidentally drunk on rum cakes with Melissa Gilbert at 7-Eleven. She recounts the time she and Katherine MacGregor appeared in costume publicly, only to face attack by angry schoolgirls. Yet beneath the humor lies deeper territory: surviving traumatic abuse, battling depression and crippling shyness, discovering her father's twenty-year secret, and losing her Little House husband Steve Tracy to AIDS, which launched her activism career. Arngrim credits her villainous character with teaching her boldness and determination, transforming a shy girl into someone unafraid to speak truth.
Genres: drama, abuse, 20th-century, autobiography, biography-memoir, comedy, 21st-century, activism
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, overcoming-adversity
Setting: Hollywood
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
302 pages · Hardcover · Dey Street Books
Content warnings: abuse, depression, mental-illness