Biography

Joseph Lim Kim was born on the border of Kentucky and West "by God" Virginia-where the Hatfields and McCoys once feuded for generations over a razorback pig. He is the son of a South Korean immigrant and a former Catholic nun and beauty queen (Miss Welch, WV) raised in the coal mining hollers of Appalachia.

His father, Kim Hak-Lim, was a South Korean POW who survived being marched to exhaustion by North Korean troops. Left for dead in a cave, he was found and nursed back to health by his mother, who had secretly followed behind. He later became a surgeon and was part of the first wave of Korean doctors to immigrate to the United States. During his residency, he met Shirley Jean Daugherty, who had recently left the convent-and soon after, they married.