Billy Eichner

And that had...

an enormous impact on my life, on my confidence, on my work.

And I ended up walking into the world with a lot less shame about being gay than I think a lot of gay men do, unfortunately.

I'm not saying I never had my moments of shame.

We all do.

But

Relative to a lot of people I know and a lot of people I've read about, other gay men, I was just beyond lucky that they loved me so much.

It's a remarkable thing.

That's a very nice way of putting it.

Thank you.

And that's why the book is so much about my parents.

And the book was such a gift to me.

And it forced me to sit down, which I probably wouldn't have done.

you know, unless I had a reason to, which was that someone made me an offer and I took it to write a book about my childhood.

They didn't say that it had to be about my childhood.

All the publisher said was we want it to be personal.

We want it to be nonfiction, to have a memoir-like quality.

They said, other than that, it can be a book of essays.

It can be whatever you want.

And I sat down and I said, what is this going to be about?