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The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir (P.S.) Paperback – March 22, 2011

4.7 out of 5 stars 528 ratings

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Eric Poole and Josh Kilmer-Purcell: Author One-on-One

Eric Poole is the secret love child of Fran Lebowitz and David Sedaris. But oddly taller. The author of Where's My Wand and a VP of radio marketing for a major media company, Eric resides in Los Angeles with his partner of eight years. Recently he sat down with Josh Kilmer-Purcell to discuss their work. Read the resulting interview below, or turn the tables to see what happened when Josh interviewed Eric.

Eric: How many jobs can one person have? You're a bestselling author, an advertising exec, a gentleman farmer and the star of the Fabulous Beekman Boys reality series. Don't you know that unemployment is 8.5%?

Josh: You raise a really good point. Since only one of those jobs pays more than minimum wage, I wonder if I can collect some sort of unemployment?

Eric: In your new memoir The Bucolic Plague, your partner Brent gives vivid and highly amusing life to the term "control freak." Does he make up for it in other ways, or are you just medicated?

Josh: If it weren’t for Brent, I would still be living in a crappy rental apartment spending my evenings reading crappy books and watching mindless television shows rather than writing crappy books and starring in mindless television shows. I’m inherently very lazy. While having a control freak as a partner might seem difficult from the outside, it certainly does motivate oneself to get off one’s ass…if for no other reason than to shut him up.

Eric: I was so rooting for you and Brent in this book. I started the book in Mexico and couldn't leave the room until I finished it. You owe me a suntan.

Josh: Years from now, when you don’t find a giant, discolored, Arkansas-shaped mole in your bikini region, you will thank me.

Eric: The Bucolic Plague is the story of how you came to buy the farm that your reality series is about. What on earth made you think buying and running a farm would be easy?

Josh: It was 2007. Everything was easy. You could find gently pre-owned Lexus sedans in curbside recycling bins. You sent in your clothes for dry-cleaning, and they upgraded them to haute couture. There were carts on every NYC street corner hawking weekend homes to passersby. A million-dollar goat farm seemed like the deal of the century. Unfortunately that century ended in with the market crash of 2008.

Eric: What's the one thing you hate most about farming (if you can narrow it down)?

Josh: Nothing. Not one thing. The only thing I even slightly dislike is leaving the farm every Sunday night to come back to the city.

Eric: Brent doesn't want to introduce you to his straight-laced family. Is he afraid they’ll like you better?

Josh: Actually, I have just recently met his entire family. Brent and I have been together for 11 years, but it has taken this long to for me to meet his family because some of his relatives are pretty devout fundamentalists. And because he (rightly) loves them very much, and because they (rightly) love him very much, and because I (rightly) love Brent very much, we all needed to wait until everyone felt completely comfortable with the situation. I happen to be fairly religious myself. So I figured I’d let God work it out on his schedule since he was the reason for the mess in the first place.

Eric: The goat milk products on your website are a big hit. Are the goats going all diva on your ass?

Josh: The goats are pretty humble. The llama, however, is a drama queen. “Llook at me! I’m the only llama on the farm!” One day I’m going to bring home an Emu just to knock her down a peg or two.

Eric: In your memoir I Am Not Myself These Days, you dated a drug-addicted escort. Do you look back and think, mmm, good times...?

Josh: Yep. At the risk of making people dislike me even more than so many already do, I have to admit I’ve had a kickass life.

Eric: Do you ever wish you could go back to just being Aqua (your drag queen alter ego), when your biggest problem was how to feed the live goldfish in your bustier?

Josh: You’re supposed to feed goldfish??

Eric: What's the last thing you think about at night? Is it your llama?

Josh: I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. The last thing I think about at night is that if I don’t wake up in the morning I will have achieved everyone’s ultimate goal of dying in one’s sleep. Then I wind up losing sleep trying to figure out how one goes about gloating over such a thing.

Review

“Kilmer-Purcell fertilizes this narrative until it reeks of charm.” — New York Times

“Enter 60 goats and homemade soap, apple-picking and an heirloom vegetable garden. Hilarity follows. And trouble. But let’s not spoil the party. It’s fun.” — USA Today

The Bucolic Plague has something different to offer―if we can do it anyone can, it tells us, provided we can laugh at ourselves.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Side-splitting.” — Wall Street Journal

“A hilarious memoir.” — Whole Living

“The witty new memoir from Josh Kilmer-Purcell.” — Food & Wine, Online Review

“Always entertaining and often moving.” — The Stranger (Seattle)

“Baby goats, diarrhea, and Martha Stewart. Former drag queen turned goat farmer Josh Kilmer-Purcell begins his latest book, The Bucolic Plague, with a hilarious vignette involving all three. Clearly, the man has an interesting story to tell.” — Wisconsin State Journal

“Kilmer-Purcell writes with dramatic flair and trenchant wit, uncovering mirthful metaphors as he plows through their daily experiences.” — Publishers Weekly

“This particular merging of city and country is both sweet and savory.” — Kirkus Reviews

“I adore the Beekman boys’ story. Their unlikely story of love, the land, and a herd of goats is hilariously honest. If these two can go from Manhattan to a goat farm in upstate New York, then I can’t help feeling there is hope for us all.” — Alice Waters

“I gobbled up this book like…well, like goat cheese on a cracker. Kilmer-Purcell’s genius lies in his ability to blindside the reader with heart-wrenching truths in the midst of the most outlandish scenarios. He makes you laugh until you care.” — Armistead Maupin

“A delicious book about two city boys who buy a farm, fall in love with a herd of goats, and attempt to revive the American dream. . . . Never has mucking out a stall been more scintillating!” — Alison Smith, author of Name All the Animals

“My Amtrak seat mate in the Quiet Car, a complete stranger, insisted that I read out loud the scene -- a goat in labor -- that was making me laugh so hard I was crying. . . . Kilmer-Purcell’s book is manically funny, sweetly open and trusting, and slick and snarky.” — New York Times Book Review

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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0061997838
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (March 22, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780061997839
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061997839
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.83 x 7.78 x 5.36 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 out of 5 stars 528 ratings

About the author

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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

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
528 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

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Hella Christensen Harper
5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST read book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 6, 2013
mocha
4.0 out of 5 stars I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 9, 2016
A. D. Dunn
5.0 out of 5 stars Love Josh-Kilmer Purcell
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 16, 2010
Carolyn kc
4.0 out of 5 stars Hard to put down
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 11, 2013
Sonja Jensen
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful story and writer
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 26, 2014