I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir (P.S.) [Paperback]

Josh Kilmer-Purcell (Author)

Book Description

Series: P.S. | Publication Date: February 7, 2006

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.'"

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.)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (February 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060817321
• ISBN-13: 978-0060817329
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Biographies & Memoirs > Gay
  • #45 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Regional U.S. > Mid Atlantic

More 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 the television docu-series The Fabulous Beekman Boys. He and his partner, Brent Ridge, divide their time between Manhattan and the Beekman Farm.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I'm a drag queen. I'm a celebrity trapped inside a normal person's body.", April 24, 2006

By 

Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir (P.S.) (Paperback)

It's New York city in the mid-1990s and our author is an advertising agent by day and a wild drag queen with fish-filled breasts at night. He performs nightly as his Aquadisiac alter-ego, staying out until the wee hours of the morning fueled by vodka, and crams in work the next day before starting all over again. Fortunately, no one can smell the vodka coming out of his pores. Much of his time is spent reconstructing the night before, figuring out where he is waking up, and trying to remember who he talked to and what he did the night before. His advertising campaigns come in brilliant bursts of last-minute energy.

Then comes Jack, the gay male escort who sweeps Josh's life into a semblance of order. Jack loves Aqua and Josh loves Jack. Mid-way through the book, the reader will realize that all the over-the-top orgies, Jack's S&M clients, the drug use, and the rampant alcohol abuse are just fluff around a true love story. Sure, it's titillating to get a glimpse inside alternate lifestyles, but this is truly the story of two misfits who complete eachother. This is a book that will teach you how a drag queen hides his private parts (an entire chapter is devoted to the deconstruction of the male and invention of the female persona), give you every detail about the process of preparing crack in a NY penthouse kitchen, show you the true friendship that develops between Josh and one of Jack's CEO clients who spends weekends tied up on the penthouse floor, and crush your heart with the agony of loving someone who is addicted to drugs. Josh, with his 10-plus vodka-a-day habit, seems like the messed up one in the beginning, but it is Jack who succumbs to addiction, leaving Josh to helplessly look on.

So we have sex, drugs, and club music, mixed up with a love story that got me in the gut by the end of the book...what more could you need? Josh tops this all off with a hilarious and over-the-top narrative voice. When depressed, he fantasizes about being in a Lifetime movie, so he drinks vodka in bed and walks around the apartment alone making declarations about a marriage, mortgage, or the kids. When he lies for a co-worker, he changes his story half a dozen times to make it more "realistic," nevermind that the facts are completely different. He's not an alcoholic, he's a social catalyst, someone who gets paid to illustrate the chemical process of drinking to other partygoers. When he wakes up to a crack-high Jack standing over him with a knife, Josh complains that he just got the expensive knife for Christmas. Jack changes his mind about the murder-suicide he had planned, and Josh goes back to sleep, reminding him to put the knife back in the rack so it doesn't rust.

As over-the-top as this narrative is, it is in no way implausible (I need to make this statement because James Frey wrote a cover blurb). The story of Jack's present to Josh for his first New York Christmas will touch even the most hardened reader. Truly, this book is Josh's tribute to a man he loved for one unforgettable year in New York city. If you enjoy this, try the darker tale of Ron Nyswaner`s love for a male escort in the book Blue Days, Black Nights.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Captivating Personal Story, March 9, 2006

By 

calvinyw (NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir (P.S.) (Paperback)

It's a book that once you pick up, you don't want to put it down. Funny, sad, bittersweet, reminds me of Michael Cunningham and "A Home at the End of the World", not as smooth (could use some editing), but more personal.

At first, I was just interested in the unfamiliar world of male escort and drag queens. Then, through all the drugs, alcohol and prostitution, I saw 2 real people searching for that fleeting happiness. And I realized, as funny as it sounds, I started to care about the love between a crackhead hooker and an alcoholic drag queen.

All in all, a captivating personal journey and a wonderful read.

Don't let the 4 star rating fool you. I only give 5 star to books that I couldn't find any fault, and you can certainly find some areas for improvement in this book. But with me writing 3 to 4 reviews in a year, the mere fact that I am writing one showed how much I liked the book.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your basic "Bright Lights, Big Titt*es", February 7, 2006

By 

Laura Fegley (NYC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir (P.S.) (Paperback)

On the surface, "I Am Not Myself These Days" appears to be a tale of the drag underworld - and indeed, it doesn't fail to entertain with some hilarious and lurid details. But scratch the MAC foundation just a bit and I found a wonderfully written novel exploring much more universal themes - love, self destruction, self-destructive love and the search for comfort in your own skin. I absolutely loved it.