I Left It on the Mountain

“A gentleman-pilgram’s tale of quiet fortitude and strength on the long path to something akin to wisdom. Kevin Sessums matches each instance of self-debasement with a quiet and forgiving wonderment at how his skies got so dark. He finds the answers in small acts of private internal courage in his exile in Provincetown, where he meets himself unblinkingly but with great kindness. The kindness Kevin has always showed others, he finally proffers to himself. A quietly stunning book as intimate as a story told over a winter’s night in a quiet beach town, after everyone has gone home.” –Jon Robin Baitz

“A gay Wild with drugs and sex and spirituality that shocked even me.” –John Waters

“In the absorbing follow-up to his bestselling memoir Mississippi Sissy, Sessums carries readers through an extraordinary journey of destitution, hope, and forgiveness, from a childhood in rural Mississippi to New York City and beyond.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A smart, spiritually, and emotionally rich story, rife with failure, forgiveness, and the yearning for significance.” –Los Angeles Review of Books

“Hopeful and moving … I Left It on the Mountain is a spiritual page-turner.”–Lambda Literary Review

”[A] powerful, visceral new memoir.“–BookPage

“With the most acute eye, an ear for the telling phrase, and a brand of compassion seldom encountered in the world of celebrity journalism, Kevin Sessums takes us along on a rare journey–to the places few people besides the famous and those who follow them get to go through the pages of deeply engaging new book, I got to know Madonna and Jessica Lange, and a long list of others. The most likable among them, Kevin Sessums himself. In a world of tinsel, he reveals himself to be that rare thing: a journalist with a heart.” –Joyce Maynard, author of Labor Day, The Usual Rules, The Good Daughters and others

“Kevin Sessums’ I Left It On The Mountain is irresistible–in turn, scandalous, hysterical, poignant, and, finally, triumphant.” –David Sheff, author of clean and beautiful boy

“Kevin Sessums’s brother once told him ‘You might be a sissy but you’re a damn tough determined one.’ And he was right; only the toughest of sissies could have survived the life, alternately enviable and harrowing, that Sessums describes with an almost reckless bravery in I Left It On The Mountain. Because Sessums didn’t leave everything up there. He found something, too, that he didn’t know he was looking for - the ability to forgive himself, and the grace to describe what that lifelong process has been like. The result is this terrifying, dishy, beautiful, valuable book.” –Richard Kramer author of These Things Happen and writer/producer/director on My So-Called Life and thirtysomething

“The best writers make you feel that contradictory things are true. Kevin Sessums goes one further and makes you feel they’re true because contradictory - he wouldn’t be the excited, vivid, big-game celebrity hunter he is, did he not experience so keenly the sadness of the chase and the starry desolation of those he tracks. A book both strong and delicate, of the world and of the spirit in equal measure.” –Man Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson, author of The Mighty Walzer, Kalooki Nights, The Finkler Question, and J: A Novel

KEVIN SESSUMS is editor in chief of FourTwoNine magazine and dot429.com. He was previously a contributing editor of Vanity Fair, Allure, and Parade. His work has appeared in Elle, Travel+Leisure, Out, Playboy, and Marie Claire as well as on the website The Daily Beast. He lives in San Francisco, California.