The true adventures of a drag queen named Aqua: her loves, her
trials, her goldfish. Real-life stories from the fringe seem to be
the latest trend in memoirs, and Kilmer-Purcell makes a stellar
debut in this genre. An art director by day (at an unnamed downtown
Manhattan advertising firm that any New Yorker with a grain of
sense can identify from geographical clues), by night he was a
performer in drag with a distinctive specialty: water-filled fake
breasts containing live goldfish. Being the fabulous creature named
Aqua was actually work, the author reveals. S/he emceed at club
after club, striving to be relentlessly shocking and to create a
glittery, glorious, train-wreck persona that forced people to pay
attention. Actually, the few hundred bucks in an envelope under the
bar helped more than the attention did. Late of a typical
Midwestern upbringing, Kilmer-Purcell was new to the city but
couldn't imagine himself anywhere else, no matter how awful his
East Village living situation. So it was good that he met Jack and
moved into a sparkling white Upper East Side penthouse in the sky.
Who would leave New York under those circumstances, even though
Jack paid for the place by working as a high-priced hooker? (In the
book, he's never more than one page away from having to head out
the door with a backpack full of toys.) The author doesn't try to
pretend that working during the day and spending evenings at the
clubs, vodka permanently attached to hand, wasn't fun. The way he
tells it, he also had a strangely perfect relationship with Jack,
who didn't allow his profession-plus attendant addictions and
erratic behavior-to keep him from being a near-to-perfect
boyfriend. But everything that goes up must come down, and
Kilmer-Purcell meticulously records the collapse in 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)
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.'"
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