A true story of an original girlfella who broke all the rules, survived federal prison, and found grace along the way.
“...Denise has a style of polished rawness that finds the humor within the darkness. Dealing doesn't pull anything from the bottom of the deck.” —Charlie Sheen
To meet Denise Trigo-Fleming today is to meet an accomplished and savvy professional with a happy family, leading a quiet and enviable Hollywood life. She is devoted to her teenagers and active in their everyday moments, manages publicity campaigns for A-list clients, is an executive producer, and spends the summers traveling with her close-knit family. But when she was her kids’ age, Denise was a major player—a teenpin—in the Southern California drug trade.
Denise grew up in a beachside Orange County town, partying with Hollywood icons while trying to balance loyalty, rebellion, and survival. Her fast-paced life came to a crashing halt during a life-altering federal drug bust in Hawaii that sent Denise to prison for the rest of her twenties and early thirties. With the perspective of motherhood, and her work in the criminal justice system, she deals with the lessons of her past and shares the wisdom she has gained along the way.
Denise’s memoir is part Orange Is the New Black, part How to Murder Your Life, and part The Many Lives of Mama Love. In Dealing, Denise takes us inside the heart of a teenage girl coming of age amid an electric cultural renaissance, living a double life—one within a loving Italian family, and another in an underground world as a teenage criminal mastermind, all colored by the nostalgia of her youth. Illuminated in dazzling 1980s neon, Dealing is about the choices, circumstances, and betrayals that led to Denise’s seven-year prison sentence, as well as her struggle for redemption on the other side.
