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

“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

TheNew York Timesbestselling, darkly funny memoir of a young New Yorker's daring dual life—advertising art director by day, glitter-dripping drag queen and nightclub beauty-pageant hopeful by night—was a smash literary debut for Josh Kilmer-Purcell, now known for his popular Planet Green television seriesThe Fabulous Beekman Boys. His story begins here—before the homemade goat milk soaps and hand-gathered honeys, before his memoir of the city mouse’s move to the country,The Bucolic Plague—inI Am Not Myself These Days, with “plenty of dishy anecdotes and moments of tragi-camp delight” (Washington Post).

I Am Not Myself These Daysfollows 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 goodlS"