The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers - An Unconventional Memoir »

In the 1990s Josh Kilmer-Purcell was a world-renowned drag queen by night and an award-winning advertising creative by day. He is the author of a popular monthly column for Out magazine and a screenplay based on his bestselling memoir, I Am Not Myself These Days. Kilmer-Purcell and his partner divide their time between Manhattan and a goat farm in upstate New York.

What happens when two New Yorkers (one an ex–drag queen) do the unthinkable: start over, have a herd of kids, and get a little dirty?

Find out in this riotous and moving true tale of goats, mud, and a centuries-old mansion in rustic upstate New York—the new memoir by Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of the New York Times bestseller I Am Not Myself These Days. A happy series of accidents and a doughnut-laden escape upstate take Josh and his partner, Brent, to the doorstep of the magnificent (and fabulously for sale) Beekman Mansion. One hour and one tour later, they have begun 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 are 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 eighty-eight goats, courtesy of their new caretaker, Farmer John. And soon, a fledgling business, born of a gift of handmade goat-milk soap, blossoms into a brand, Beekman 1802.

The Bucolic Plague is tart and sweet, touching and laugh out loud funny, a story about approaching middle age, being in a long-term relationship, realizing the city no longer feeds you in the same way it used to, and finding new depths of love and commitment wherever you live.

The New York Times Book Review - Dominique Browning

…The Bucolic Plague turns out to be appealingly replete with mythic characters and otherworldly connections…Kilmer-Purcell's book is manically funny, sweetly open and trusting, and slick and snarky. Must be something in the soil.