Buy new:
$14.19$14.19
FREE delivery: Wednesday, Feb 22 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Buy used: $8.52
Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
94% positive over last 12 months
+ $3.99 shipping
100% positive over last 12 months
+ $3.99 shipping
98% positive over last 12 months
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir (P.S.) Paperback – March 22, 2011
| Josh Kilmer-Purcell (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
| Price | New from | Used from |
|
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial | |
|
Audio CD, Audiobook, CD, Unabridged
"Please retry" | $39.22 | $19.95 |
Enhance your purchase
“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
“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
Michael Perry (Coop, Truck: A Love Story) meets David Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim) in this follow-up to Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s beloved New York Times bestselling debut memoir, I Am Not Myself These Days—another riotous, moving, and entirely unique story of his attempt to tackle the next phase of life with his partner… on a goat farm in upstate New York.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateMarch 22, 2011
- Dimensions0.83 x 7.78 x 5.36 inches
- ISBN-109780061997839
- ISBN-13978-0061997839
"Token Black Girl: A Memoir" by Danielle Prescod for $9.15
Racial identity, pop culture, and delusions of perfection collide in an eye-opening and refreshingly frank memoir by fashion and beauty insider Danielle Prescod. | Learn more
Frequently bought together

- +
- +
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
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
From the Back Cover
National Bestseller
What happens when two New Yorkers (one an ex–drag queen) do the unthinkable: start over, raise a herd of kids, and get a little dirty?
A happy series of accidents and a doughnut-laden escape upstate take Josh Kilmer-Purcell and his partner, Brent Ridge, to the doorstep of the magnificent (and fabulously for sale) Beekman Mansion. And so begins their transformation from uptight urbanites into the two-hundred-year-old-mansion-owning Beekman Boys. Suddenly Josh—a full-time New Yorker with a successful advertising career—and Brent find themselves weekend farmers, surrounded by nature's bounty and an eclectic cast: roosters who double as a wedding cover band; Bubby, the bionic cat; and a herd of goats, courtesy of their new caretaker, Farmer John.
The Bucolic Plague is a tart and sweet, touching and laugh-out-loud funny story about goats, mud, homemade soap, approaching middle age, and finding new depths of love and commitment wherever you live.
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.
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
- Best Sellers Rank: #533,699 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #119 in Mid Atlantic U.S. Biographies
- #1,360 in Humor Essays (Books)
- #19,237 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Just to not sound as a complete idiot, I should probably explain why I'm so fascinated with this venture of Beekman 1802. I actually tried myself to realize my run from stressful job life change dream, but with no success; my little venture, the first coffee-bookstore open 7.00 a.m. to 2.00 a.m with wireless internet, bistro kitchen in medieval Italian historic centre on its first year of life was featured on the 2 most important travel magazine in Italy, was the subject of a bachelor degree thesis in finance as innovative business and hosted a national television channel showtime for one day... to close after 2 year due to the fact that, in the end, it was not enough to maintain itself and the people working for it. So yes, I'm vicariously enjoying Brent and Josh's success and I wish them all the good in the world, and I'm here cheering for them and their goats, and Farmer John, and Doug and Gareth from The American Hotel, and Sharon Springs and Bubby the bionic cat and everyone in this story.
Yes, I'm still eagerly waiting for the DVD to arrive, but I think that now I will see it in a different way; since, from the outside, everything seemed perfect on that mansion, the pictures were wonderful, the recipes just out of an historical cook book, the dream even too easy to realize. I was thinking, lucky them, they are living an American dream (do you know that here in Italy, when someone realizes the dream of their life, we say it's an "American Dream"?), and I'm happy, but also a little envious of them. Then reading the book, I understood that it was not so easy, that they, like many other before them, not only risked their future, but also their relationship. The story has an happily ever after, but it's a "barely" stretched one, and in a way, it's not even so sure the dream will survive its third year of life. True, the story closes before the reality showing them was aired, and now it's at its third season, so maybe, in the end, they managed to survive third and fourth year and they are leading towards always greener pasture... again I wish them all the best.
Coming back to the story, even if this is not a fiction book, but more a memoir, the writing style is really easy and flowing, and sincerely it reads without any stopping like many of the romances I love, only that this is real life. There is even a funny story behind this dichotomy between real life and fictional story: way before I heard about the Beekman Boys, I included Josh Kilmer-Purcell on my Top Book of XXI century with his memoir I'm Not Myself These Days. I still remember some years ago going to his website and looking at the pictures of his life as Drag Queen and thinking, well, what an interesting man. It was 2006 and Beekman Mansion was, I believe, not in the picture (pun intended). Years later, browsing another website [...] I firstly didn't recognize the co-owner of the mansion like the memoirist that so much fascinated me. But if you will decide to read the book, there is a lot of him in this story (of course, it's real life!) and in a way, you could read this book as a sequel of I'm Not Myself These Days, just to know what happened to that Drag Queen... it's an happily ever after story (at least until now!).
The topic of Kilmer-Purcell's memoir is one of high romance, not in the physical sense of the term (though underlying much of his writing is as fine a description of the many secrets of what makes a relationship tick), but in the Big Dream sense. As an ad executive he and his significant other, partner Brent Ridge who is a physician now part of the Martha Stewart television family, have been together for 9 years, living the life of overworked Manhattanites, but spending enough time to take annual autumn apple picking journeys outside of the city. During one of these adventures in autumn bliss they come across rundown Sharon Springs and discover Beekman Mansion, a grand old 200 year old home on a farm - in need of repair, but for sale. Of course they fall in love with the village and the mansion and the farm and decide to enhance their lives by buying the quaint bit of nostalgia. They work weekdays in the city, but spend every spare moment of the weekends to restore the farm, the gardens, the trees, the accompanying goats, and their fellow farmer John. The work is intense but exceptionally fulfilling - until an idea they share (making soap out of goat's milk) catches on, especially with Brent's connection on the Martha Stewart show. The farm and mansion become an internet sales success, but amidst the glories they have wrought by following their dreams, Josh and Brent have communication problems exacerbated by the dip in the economy and the concurrent loss of heir jobs. But as the future looks dim the light of friendship and camaraderie of their new home village overcomes a lot and they get a keener view of the value of 'things' versus 'home'.
This book is brimming over with hilarious incidents exceptionally well told by the witty and wise Josh Kilmer-Purcell: some moments with the goats, with New York Times reporters, with the zombie flies, the fellows' first observation of the birth of triplet goats, the preparations of canning, gardening, and party planning are bound to stay in the readers memory long after the book is finished. This is a dazzling bit of writing and a heart-warming story with just exactly the right balance of wit, sarcasm, and warmth that should make it appeal to everyone who's ever pondered a dream. Bravo! Grady Harp, August 10
Top reviews from other countries
This story is so much more than drag queen meets "Green Acres". It's about midlife and getting older, relationships, finding what is important in life, Martha Stewart, trying, failing, and really what it means to be human in 2010. Loved this book, I couldn't put it down.
I'm now trying to think of new endeavors for Mr. Kilmer-Purcell so he can write another memoir, ideas welcome. Josh goes to Africa and becomes a tribe medicine man? Josh organizes gay pride week in Mumbai? The boys buy a china shop in Madrid just before the running of the bulls?
I'm hoping we hear a lot more.








