My Maggie

My Maggie is the story of a woman who overcame enormous odds to live a happy and fulfilling life. She suffered from three different cancers in her life and also battled a rare disease called Usher Syndrome, which slowly took away her sight and hearing. She was legally blind yet she became a major figure in the deaf blind community of Chicago. She was a counselor for th eChicago Lighthouse for the Blind, served on a governors board and was a lobbyist in Washington, DC and Springfield, Illinois. Her story is also an incredibly deep love story with her childhood sweetheart and husband of 32 years.

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

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)

Rich King is an Emmy-winning sportscaster for WGNTV. He was been named Illinois sportscaster of the year in 1991. He has covered sports in Chicago for 31 years and has also appeared on the NBC Today show twice to talk about My Maggie. The book has already sold 15,000 copies. King does volunteer work for the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind and the American Cancer society.