Candy Everybody Wants

Candy Everybody Wants
Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Armistead Maupin meets Beautiful People in Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s hilarious and yet poignant coming-of-age taleJayson Blocher is fifteen years old with a wayward mother, a disabled brother and a neighbour who thinks he’s the spawn of the devil.For so long he has worshipped at the feet of popular culture, but now he wants to be part of it, and let’s face it, what’s to keep him in Wisconsin? Even his own mother wants him to go.So Jayson heads off to find fame and fortune, accompanied by an ever-changing cast of quirky extended family members.From a New York escort agency to the glamour of a Hollywood situation comedy, Jayson searches for his destiny. Only to find that being America’s sweetheart can leave a very sour aftertaste.

JOSH KILMER-PURCELL

Candy Everybody Wants

For my family.

I grant you this brief respite from memoir.

The media have created a new ‘electronic reality,’ suffused with images and symbols, which has obliterated any sense of an objective reality behind the symbols…In hyperreality it is no longer possible to distinguish the imaginary from the real.

—Kumar

Thanks. I already turned down the part you’re playing.

—Helen Lawson

Table of Contents

Epigraph (#ude337cb1-3a9e-5225-a3f9-b5102069ce76)

August 1981 (#u6d68bd85-a72f-52e0-b41e-3e0281c796fd)

Chapter One (#uc9fd5c0b-833e-5b60-86f0-b2a9f437256a)

Chapter Two (#u6a2080b9-9aca-502f-891b-0896b9a6fa97)

Chapter Three (#u8645a58b-460f-5923-bc8b-786c72b40360)

Chapter Four (#ufc097b5b-d364-562b-a703-d037be000599)

Chapter Five (#ub6e51b9f-d464-5d5e-84d0-e6d5c16b776b)

Chapter Six (#ua318a1f8-dc58-54b7-ae57-ebeafdb22b38)

Chapter Seven (#u37182555-f0d3-50e1-a25a-e9f2446b9775)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise for Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s I Am Not Myself These Days (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Josh Kilmer-Purcell (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)