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Confessions Of A Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated
 
 

Confessions Of A Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated [Hardcover]

Alison Arngrim
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
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Confessions Of A Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated + The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House + Prairie Tale: A Memoir
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Review

“Hilarious and heartbreaking.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution )

“Arngrim, decades past her ‘Little House On The Prairie’ years, dishes lots of great on-set stories, talks about what being a kid actor in the 1970s was actually like and discusses her own painful family history with frankness and humor....Delightful.” (NPR.org )

“Spunky Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie [Oleson], gets my kudos...Alison has a knack for yanking people’s chains in a good way. And her new bestselling memoir, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, is such an absorbing read, I just had to give the woman a call for some bitch talk.” (Michael Musto, Village Voice )

“’Confessions of a Prairie Bitch’ says it all: Neither Arngrim nor Nellie could ever be called boring.” (Entertainment Weekly )

“Courage, moxie, chutzpah , cajones. Alison Arngrim has them all in spades. In “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch,” she bares her soul and manages to share her story with grace, dignity, and her inimitable humor. Simply put, I love this book and I love her. ” (Melissa Gilbert )

“Alison Arngrim, familiar to a generation of TV viewers as the petulant Nellie Oleson of ‘Little House On The Prairie,’ is dishing the dirt on Walnut Grove.” (AOL PopEater )

“Arngrim displays a healthy sense of humor.” (Chicago Sun-Times )

Arngrim looks back on playing the pint-sized sociopath in her memoir, “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch,” in which she merrily recalls show creator and star Michael Landon, that infamous blond wig, and how Nellie inspired her lifelong obsession with villainy.” (New York Post )

“Alison Arngrim is a talented actress and an author who has patched together a meaningful life and created a book whose pages…fly.” (Phyllis Diller )

“As a city bitch myself, I loved this book! It’s nice to see how the other half lives. Alison Arngrim’s memoir is a hilarious, moving, and dishy Hollywood tale.” (Margaret Cho )

“Alison Arngrim is a fine actress and a true comedienne. She has always been the kind of ‘Bitch’ who tells it like it is. So, readers beware, you are in for an eye-full of reality told with a remarkable sense of humor.” (Carol Channing )

“Whoa, Nellie! “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch” is a book that you will keep stored under a haystack in the barn, to dip into whenever you need a shot of something that will keep you down on the farm.” (Bruce Vilanch )

Book Description

For seven years, Alison Arngrim played a wretched, scheming, selfish, lying, manipulative brat on one of TV history's most beloved series. Though millions of Little House on the Prairie viewers hated Nellie Oleson and her evil antics, Arngrim grew to love her character—and the freedom and confidence Nellie inspired in her.

In Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, Arngrim describes growing up in Hollywood with her eccentric parents: Thor Arngrim, a talent manager to Liberace and others, whose appetite for publicity was insatiable, and legendary voice actress Norma MacMillan, who played both Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. She recalls her most cherished and often wickedly funny moments behind the scenes of Little House: Michael Landon's "unsaintly" habit of not wearing underwear; how she and Melissa Gilbert (who played her TV nemesis, Laura Ingalls) became best friends and accidentally got drunk on rum cakes at 7-Eleven; and the only time she and Katherine MacGregor (who played Nellie's mom) appeared in public in costume, provoking a posse of elementary schoolgirls to attack them.

Arngrim relays all this and more with biting wit, but she also bravely recounts her life's challenges: her struggle to survive a history of traumatic abuse, depression, and paralyzing shyness; the "secret" her father kept from her for twenty years; and the devastating loss of her "Little House husband" and best friend, Steve Tracy, to AIDS, which inspired her second career in social and political activism. Arngrim describes how Nellie Oleson taught her to be bold, daring, and determined, and how she is eternally grateful to have had the biggest little bitch on the prairie to show her the way.


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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Best Memoir to Come From a LHOTP Child Actor, Aug 5 2010
By 
Nicola Manning (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Confessions Of A Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated (Hardcover)
Reason for Reading: I'm a big fan of LHOTP. I read Melissa Gilbert's memoir and was anxious to find out more and very excited when I saw Alison had a book out.

Alison Arngrim's narrative is a pleasure to read. Just by reading the title we get a glimpse of what kind of attitude we can expect to find inside the covers. Arngrim is also a stand-up comedienne and with that knowledge it explains the easy going narrative style full of humour that made this book such a fun read.

Alison starts by telling of her childhood, brought up in an unconventional family, and of her s*xual abuse by her older brother. The meat of the book, though, concerns her life growing up on the Prairie and she provides fans with what was so sadly lacking in Melissa Gilbert's book. We get a behind the scenes look at the filming and the actors. Alison is funny and no holds barred without being catty or dishing dirt. Yes, she tells what people were really like, if they were generally not liked she says so. She has many funny and sometimes just strange anecdotes to relate about the seven years she played Nellie Oleson. I really appreciated her tone. She talked about every major character on the show, all the children, and the adults that Nellie would typically have scenes with. So unfortunately Mr. Edwards, one of my favourites, was only mentioned briefly in passing. I was thrilled that Alison spoke of Jonathan Gilbert frequently and so fondly since Melissa had reduced him to a few sentences in the middle of her book. Melissa Sue Anderson gets the short end of the stick as worst personality on the show. Mary was always my favourite and I was startled that Melissa mentioned her in passing only three times in her book. Alison refers to her many more times and while never being mean or nasty does relate many instances which let us know why she was not fond of her and she outs Gilbert's opinions of her as well. I would love Melissa Sue's view of this but apparently her book doesn't address any of this and is getting bad reviews so I'm not sure if I'll read it or not, at this point. The Little House cast were Arngrim's family and when she left the show she felt a real sense of loss without them in her day-to-day life. She and Melissa Gilbert became great friends on the show and remain so to this day.

The memoir then ends up with Alison's life after the Prairie. Going on to her activism for AIDS, her two marriages (the second which has been successful) and her determined and relentless campaign on changing the laws on incest which at the time gave those perpetrators a loophole of not having to do any prison time. This involved her having to go public with her abuse on the Larry King show in 2004.

A very satisfying read. I always have a nonfiction book on the go and usually read a chapter, perhaps two, at night before settling in to read my current novel. But Confessions was written in such an easy, fun, narrative style that I couldn't put it down after two chapters and read it as quickly as a novel. A great insider's peek behind the scenes of the filming and especially the personalities who made up The Little House on the Prairie.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read, Nov 24 2010
This review is from: Confessions Of A Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated (Hardcover)
Fantastic book! As a pretty big LHOP fan, this was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. I couldn't put it down and I finished the book with a greater appreciation and a whole lot of respect for Alison Arngrim! Most importantly her book is well written and intelligent. I know I will pick up and read it again in the future!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous, Nov 17 2010
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This review is from: Confessions Of A Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated (Hardcover)
Great book, well-written, funny, a page-turner. Ms. Arngrim is genuine and passionate about all things in her life. I HATED Nellie when I was a child but I adore Alison! Loved, loved, loved this book.
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