Jimmy Neurosis

Book excerpt: A Lambda Literary Award Finalist From a celebrated figure of the food world comes a poignant, provocative memoir about being young and gay during the 1970s punk revolution in America Long before James Oseland was a judge on Top Chef Masters, he was a teenage rebel growing up in the pre–Silicon Valley, California, suburbs, yearning for a taste of something wild. Diving headfirst into the churning mayhem of the punk movement, he renamed himself Jimmy Neurosis and embarked on a journey into a vibrant underground world populated by visionary musicians and artists. In a quest that led him from the mosh pits of San Francisco to the pop world of Andy Warhol’s Manhattan, he learned firsthand about friendship of all stripes, and what comes of testing the limits—both the joyous glories and the unanticipated, dangerous consequences. With humor and verve, Oseland brings to life the effervescent cocktail of music, art, drugs, and sexual adventure that characterized the end of the seventies. Through his account of how discovering his own creativity saved his life, he tells a thrilling and uniquely American coming-of-age story.