I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir
Brand: Harper Perennial
Categories: Books, Biographies & Memoirs, Professionals & Academics


Harper Perennial

Dimensions: 8.08 x 5.3 x 0.83 inches
ISBN-13: 978-0060817329
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060817321
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Print length: 308 pages
Publication date: February 7, 2006
subtitle: Paperback – February 7, 2006
author: Visit Amazon's Josh Kilmer-Purcell Page search results Josh Kilmer-Purcell
review: Editorial Reviews Amazon.com Review I Am Not Myself These Days is Josh Kilmer-Purcell's outrageously intimate memoir of a young man living a double life in the heady days and nights of mid-'90s New York City. As we follow Kilmer-Purcell through alcohol-fueled nights and a love affair with Jack, a crack-addicted male escort, he offers up an alternative universe where normal is "a Normal Rockwell painting that, if you leaned in close, would discover is made up entirely of misfits." By day, Josh drudges off to a Soho-based advertising firm where he creates ad campaigns for corporate clients. At night, he dons live goldfish to complete the look of Aqua, a 7-foot-tall award-winning drag queen who trolls gay clubs in search of her next drink/one night stand. In between, he spends his time trying to build a stable, loving relationship with someone whose beeping pager is a constant reminder of the pair's almost inevitable fate. Yet even as Josh's escapades get increasingly absurd, Kilmer-Purcell is always there to remind us that the story we're reading is real, and that fundamental human emotions and desires are essentially universal. In the end, everyone just wants to be loved and to fit in somewhere. And while the lesson may seem hokey at times, Kilmer-Purcell's sharp wit rescues the memoir from becoming an exaggerated sob story: The night before any major holiday is always a blockbuster night at gay clubs. Thousands... across the city fortifying themselves for long trips home where they'll be met with awkward silences, stilted conversations and cousins with whom they'd experimented with decades ago. From start to finish, I Am Not Myself These Days is an extraordinary journey into an amazing life. To be a fly on the wall is an adventure that should not be missed. --Gisele Toueg From Publishers Weekly In the go-go '90s, Kilmer-Purcell spent his days as an advertising grunt and his nights hopping around Manhattan's gay clubs as "Aquadisiac," over seven feet tall in a wig and heels with goldfish swimming in transparent bubbles covering "her" breasts. (Not that Kilmer-Purcell wanted to actually become a woman; as he explains to his mother, a drag queen is "a celebrity trapped in a normal person's body.") He meets a cute guy, and soon he's moved into Jack's penthouse apartment—which he pays for by working as a male escort. Kilmer-Purcell gives much of his story a Sex and the City -ish spin, finding comedy in the contrast between his and Jack's sweet, cuddly relationship and the sexual demimonde of drag queens, hookers and masochists they count among their friends. But there's always a dark undercurrent: before the two get serious, Kilmer-Purcell's alcohol-impaired judgment frequently puts him in dangerous situations, but things get worse when Jack starts smoking crack during sex parties and becomes addicted. The exact, unpitying detail with which Kilmer-Purcell depicts his downward spiral makes it impossible to look away, especially since it's not until the final scenes that he allows himself to succumb to sentimentality. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist To say Kilmer-Purcell lived a double life is an understatement. If his memoir can be believed--and even if it can't be, it's a very entertaining read--he lived double lives within double lives. A talented advertising copywriter by day and a popular drag queen by night, he was also a major alcohol and cocaine abuser and the inamorato/a of a professional male escort. Over the course of six months or so, his complicated life spun out of control as fussy clients, impatient coworkers, clingy drag groupies, love problems, and multiple chemical dependencies got the best of him, not to mention his lover. Parts of his autobiography are as tart and funny as a Noel Coward play, for Kilmer-Purcell is especially good at dialogue, and as in Coward's best plays, under the comedy lies the sad truth that even at our best, we are all weak, fallible fools. Again and again in this rich, adventure-filled book, Kilmer-Purcell illustrates the truth of Blake's proverb, "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." Jack Helbig Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review “I laughed. I cried. I laughed again. I Am Not Myself These Days is tawdry and brilliantly witty.” — Simon Doonan “A glittering, bittersweet vision of an outsider who turned himself into the life and soul of the party. Kilmer-Purcell’s cast is part freak-show, part soap-opera, but his prose is graced with such insight and wit that the laughter is revelatory, and the tears—and there are tears to be shed along this extraordinary journey—are shed for people in whom everybody will find something of themselves. In a word, wonderful.” — Clive Barker “Absolutely hilarious and heartbreaking and heartfelt.” — Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City “[Kilmer-Purcell’s] trenchant memoir captures the madcap rush of the once-closeted arriviste’s first brush with city life, a fall from innocence that still haunts him. . . he retells the saga. . . with levelheaded grace.” — Entertainment Weekly “This life-altering (and ultimately heartbreaking) love story crawls deep into your veins, keeping you up late into the night and distracting you during the day.” — Zink Magazine “A painfully dysfunctional love story. . . that many readers will likely be able to relate to.” — Out Magazine “A delicate narrative that spares not an ounce of pain but never once aims for contrition. Effortlessly entertaining yet still heartfelt; the romance of life as an escape artist.” — Kirkus Reviews “The exact, unpitying detail with which Kilmer-Purcell depicts his downward spiral makes it impossible to look away.” — Publishers Weekly "At once a sensational memoir and. . . a universal love story.” — Adweek “Plenty of dishy anecdotes and moments of tragi-camp delight.” — Washington Post “Decadent and delirious, weird and wonderful.” — The New York Blade “One hell of a spellbinding read.” — Chicago Sun-Times "A very entertaining read… as tart and funny as a Noel Coward play, for Kilmer-Purcell is especially good at dialogue, and, as in Coward’s best plays, under the comedy lies the sad truth that even at our best, we are all weak, fallible fools. Again and again in this rich, adventure-filled book, Kilmer-Purcell illustrates the truth of Blake’s proverb, ‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.’” — Booklist “Kilmer-Purcell acheives the near-impossible task of getting jaded readres to root for this screwed-up pair to get their acts together and salvage their union.” — Dallas Voice “Filled with witty dialogue, confusing awakenings, and extraordinary situations. . . . Readers will find this tale of good-boy-turned-bad-drag-queen darkly hilarious and entertaining.” — Library Journal “ Through the varied and raucous details of his life experience, Kilmer-Purcell ...renders himself more accessible to all readers.” — InsideOut Nashville “There’s plenty of drama in this story of two intelligent, basically sweet guys who flirt a little too closely with the sordid underbelly of the big city. But Kilmer-Purcell maintains enough perspective throughout to keep it funny and wise.” — Metro “The brilliance of Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s new noiresque memoir lies beyond Aqua and her escapades. . . . It is the earnest (at times gentle) love story of Josh and Jack that captures universal emotions. . . . Kilmer-Purcell captures a certain universality in the emotional depth of I Am Not Myself These Days and, in so doing, renders himself more accessible to all readers.” — InsideOut Nashville “An exotic, whirlwind tale of an unconventional life.” — Nashville City Paper “Just being himself is a perfect score for ex-drag diva and debuting writer, Josh Kilmer-Purcell...a talented new voice.” — Buzz Magazine “While Kilmer-Purcell’s way of life may be uncommon, his feelings of love, betrayal, loss and hope are universal.” — Jezebel Magazine “Though Aqua is retired, her wit lives on in I AM NOT MYSELF THESE DAYS, with priceless one-liners aplenty.” — HX magazine From the Back Cover I Am Not Myself These Days follows a glittering journey through Manhattan's dark underbelly -- a shocking and surreal world where alter egos reign and subsist (barely) on dark wit and chemicals...a tragic romantic comedy where one begins by rooting for the survival of the relationship and ends by hoping someone simply survives. Kilmer-Purcell is a terrifically gifted new literary voice who straddles the divide between absurdity and normalcy, and stitches them together with surprising humor and lonely poignancy. As Booklist raved "as tart and funny as a Noel Coward play, for Kilmer-Purcell is especially good at dialogue, and, as in Coward's best plays, under the comedy lies the sad truth that even at our best, we are all weak, fallible fools. Again and again in this rich, adventure-filled book, Kilmer-Purcell illustrates the truth of Blake's proverb, 'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.'" About the Author Josh Kilmer-Purcell is the bestselling author of the memoir I Am Not Myself These Days and the novel Candy Everybody Wants , and the star of Planet Green's documentary television series The Fabulous Beekman Boys . He and his partner, Brent Ridge, divide their time between Manhattan and the Beekman Farm. Read more