Mercurial is a word often used of Cumming; and the quicksilver quality of his personality and career is fully and sometimes brilliantly reflected in this memoir, which charts the ups and downs of his private life against the backdrop of a breathtakingly successful and varied working life.

It’s easy to see why he’s so popular: Cumming is delightful company, urbane, self-deprecating and mischievously funny, not above a dishy anecdote or a throwaway dirty pun.

In general, I'm not one for celebrity memoirs, but "Baggage" captivated me from the very first sentence.

... the actor’s diverting new memoir reads as if Cumming is across the table, reeling off piquant and revelatory personal anecdotes over a meal and a couple of bottles of prosecco. Told in an exuberant voice, with ample humor, delightful asides and exclamation points, Baggage: Tales From a Fully Packed Life serves up reminiscences that are both intimate and glittery.

Whether you’re an Alan Cumming superfan or more like, Who? there is something for you to enjoy in the actor’s second memoir, Baggage: Tales From a Fully Packed Life. It is indeed fully packed with reflective writing about his extraordinary life, hard-won wisdom and plenty of Hollywood gossip.

Cumming’s memoir includes many delicious theater and Hollywood stories—featuring the likes of Liza Minnelli, Gore Vidal, Walter Cronkite, Parker Posey, and Jessica Lange—juxtaposed with insight into a wildly diverse spectrum of theater, television, and film projects. There are especially fun details of Cumming’s Tony Award–winning performance as the androgynous emcee in the late ’90s Cabaret revival.

Cumming returns with a series of revealing and witty reflections on coming to terms with his demons rather than conquering them.

... wise, pensive, sometimes chatty.