About Escape

or How ti Be a Somebody

The Marketing Blurb

Move over David Sedaris…there’s a fresh, funny new author on the scene with a brilliantly crafted collection of heartwarming, comical essays taken from his lifelong pursuit to answer the burning question:

Will I ever become the man of my dreams?

Escaping Redneckistan! (Stories of a Sensitive Boy) takes you on author Ed Kurpis’ quirky journey from a painfully shy accordion player whose embarrassing first kiss is played out to a packed auditorium of hysterical onlookers, to that of grown up media mogul and co-founder of the television network CNBC, who at the height of his professional success still hid in bathrooms to avoid meetings and celebrity cocktail parties.

A modern day Garp, Kurpis recounts his odd but true tales of growing up different: from being forced to eat roast beef for dinner every single day—more than a thousand times, to being named “pee monitor” for his unusual Catholic school; from conducting a desperate-to-impress locker room interview with a bikini brief clad Tom Brokaw, to inventing a whole family of imaginary offspring to stave off a gossipy neighbor. All to find acceptance in a world to which Ed feels he does not belong.

Told with a memoirist’s sense of honesty, Escaping Redneckistan is a sweet, poignant, and uplifting collection of stories that resonate with an adult’s wit and a child’s wonderment. It chronicles Kurpis’ remarkable travels and whimsical transformations, from board room whipping boy for GE icon Jack Welch, to four star chef in training with TV’s Jacques Pepin, to concert bassoonist with a New York symphony orchestra. But through all his hard-earned successes and heartbreaking failures Kurpis remains true to his unique voice: the little guy that still begs for someone to like him and accept him for who he really is.