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The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions is a beloved queer utopian text written by Larry Mitchell with lush illustrations by Ned Asta, published by Calamus Press in 1977. Part-fable, part-manifesto, the book takes place in Ramrod, an empire in decline, and introduces us to the communities of the faggots, the women, the queens, the queer men, and the women who love women who are surviving the ways and world of men. Cherished by many over the four decades since its publication, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions offers a trenchant critique of capitalism, assimilation, and patriarchy that is deeply relevant today. This new edition will feature essays from performance artist Morgan Bassichis, who adapted the book to music with TM Davy in 2017 for a performance at the New Museum, and activist filmmaker Tourmaline.
114 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Larry Mitchell
6 books17 followersLarry Mitchell (1939 – December 26, 2012) was an American author and publisher. He was the founder of Calamus Books - an early small press devoted to gay male literature - and the author of fiction dealing with the gay male experience in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s.
With Terry Helbing and Felice Picano, he cofounded Gay Presses of New York in 1981. His book of short stories My Life As a Mole won the 1989 Small Press Lambda Literary Award. Mitchell's novel The Terminal Bar, published in 1982, is considered to be the first book of fiction to address HIV/AIDS. The feature film Acid Snow (1998) directed by Joel Itman is based on Mitchell's novel of the same name.
He died on December 26, 2012 in Ithaca, New York after a battle with pancreatic cancer. [wikipedia]
With Terry Helbing and Felice Picano, he cofounded Gay Presses of New York in 1981. His book of short stories My Life As a Mole won the 1989 Small Press Lambda Literary Award. Mitchell's novel The Terminal Bar, published in 1982, is considered to be the first book of fiction to address HIV/AIDS. The feature film Acid Snow (1998) directed by Joel Itman is based on Mitchell's novel of the same name.
He died on December 26, 2012 in Ithaca, New York after a battle with pancreatic cancer. [wikipedia]
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 717 reviews
February 6, 2020
A pre-AIDS fable of queer solidarity and anti-patriarchal, anti-capitalist communal praxis, dyke and trans inclusive, ft a cast of characters named Heavenly Blue, Loose Tomato, and the like. Whimsical, charming, dead serious. A gift.
April 3, 2021
In the shadow of structural abandonment, political alienation, family rejection, chronic illness, state violence, and medical neglect, queer friendship saves us.
Ostensibly this book is about the so-called Lavender Hill commune established in 1973 in West Danby, New York by “a motley group of young writers, artists, political activists and recent college graduates”, according to the 2013 documentary short directed by Robert Thomas Hazen. Yes, the adjective ‘motley’ does mean ‘incongruously varied’, but there is definitely a sense of a value judgement here about this ‘difference’ or ‘disparateness’ somehow being unsavoury or unwholesome.
Just two years later in 1979, Samuel R. Delany would publish his own account of his six-month stint in the Heavenly Breakfast commune, also in New York. This was a ‘warts-and-all’ insider look at the commune experience, where the main source of income was dealing drugs, where the average number of people co-habiting at any one time was at least 16 and where, perhaps most importantly for the prurient reader, “Sex, for all practical purposes, was perpetual, seldom private, and polymorphous, if not perverse.”
However, Delany was also very much interested in the sociological imperatives behind the commune movement, an interest that would inform his own fiction like ‘Dhalgren’, not to mention his perennial fascination with thinkers like Spinoza, whose moral philosophy was “centred on the control of the passions leading to virtue and happiness,” according to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.
Well, there was certainly not much control exerted in Heavenly Breakfast, which seemed to vacillate permanently between utter chaos and random abandonment. Delany comments that: “Since there was no permanent, externally agreed-on social organisational structure, it’s accurate to say that everything that happens in the commune was because of ‘your’ or ‘my’ whim.”
“A commune?” Brother Francis asked. “Now what, exactly, is that?”
“Well,” Coca-Cola said, “it’s sort of…well, like a monastery. But it’s not religious. We live together, share things, take care of one another. We live – well, differently from the people around us.”
(If you’re wondering about the moniker ‘Coca-Cola’, the dude really has a passion for the soft drink.) Delany also debates the difference between a ‘commune’, a ‘collective’ and a ‘cooperative’. Unsurprisingly, the former is not particularly democratic, let alone an ideal platform for asserting one’s own identity.
While Delany does remark that he “learned to move within the circle of other’s people desire, and be at ease as I generated my own”, he adds: “If you’ve ever indulged the fantasy of being invisible, you’d probably like commune life.” This seems to be the central conundrum or contradiction of the commune in a nutshell.
A ‘collective’ and a ‘cooperative’ are much more like college fraternities in their social rigidity and adherence to heteronormative mores (and prohibitions). The commune wears its badge proudly as a ‘crash pad’, a ‘den of iniquity’ and a ‘rat hole’. I for the life of me cannot figure out why the bath was in the middle of the kitchen, but apparently this was a feature of East End apartments at the time.
Therefore it is perhaps inevitable that an essential aspect of communes is what Delay refers to as their ‘impermanence’. At Heavenly Breakfast, not a single organisational meeting was ever held. The centre cannot hold, to quote Yates, especially when there is no centre.
It is a remarkable experience to read ‘Faggots and their Friends’ and ‘Heavenly Breakfast’ as part of a larger dialectic about the commune experience and its lasting impact as a social movement. While the Delany book is ultimately a cautionary tale rooted in socio-political and psychological reality, Mitchell’s take has been memorably described as a ‘fairytale-cum-manifesto’.
It is difficult to even begin to describe the text, which initially started out as a children’s book, hence the fairytale nature. This bedtime story though is about a mythical kingdom called Ramrod, “an empire in decline ruled by the cruel patriarch, Warren-and-His-Fuck-pole.”
It is a series of allegorical vignettes where the titular ‘faggots’ live like the crowd in Heavenly Breakfast, with the aim to “produce art, have sex, and await the next revolution.” Mitchell’s take on the importance of dialectical history in the ongoing struggle for gay rights (yes, even in our own supposedly enlightened world) is really what makes this book so fascinating (and so endearingly funny):
The queer men continue to hope that the men will stop caring so much about who is or who is not sucking cock. If the men would stop caring so much, the queer men could then be men, only men who suck cock. They could eliminate the life that is despised and fugitive.
Delany’s only brush with a larger political context in ‘Heavenly Breakfast’ is his opening explanation of the title, a counter to the phrase the ‘Summer of Love’ (just as the commune itself is a counter to the concept of the ‘nuclear family’). It was a remarkably volatile period, marked by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and the shooting of Andy Warhol.
I think Delany deliberately chose to set ‘Heavenly Breakfast’ in a kind of socio-temporal bubble, with a granular focus instead on the day-to-day living and breathing of the commune itself. ‘Faggots and their Friends’ exists in a different kind of stasis. The fairytale nature adds a kind of timelessness (and surprising wistfulness) to the book. Together with friend and illustrator Ned Asta, Mitchell set out to record a decade of experimentation in what Morgan Bassichis calls in his introduction “radical communal living and queer friendship” from the 1960s to the 1970s.
Interestingly, Delany quite clearly emphasises the bisexuality of the Heavenly Breakfast commune as its main middle-finger gesture to the mainstream, instead of positioning it exclusively as a gay social experiment. This is probably what makes the Delany book the more nuanced and astute of the two. The Mitchell book is genuinely so weird that it seems to have been beamed in by rainbow from an alternate, deliriously gayer reality:
The faggots outstretch an invitation to us all to be a freak or a fairy, to snuggle and guzzle the cum of our friends, and be in the tender care collective of moonbeam and lilac and pine tree, hollyhock and loose tomato. I hope you’ll join me there.
Ostensibly this book is about the so-called Lavender Hill commune established in 1973 in West Danby, New York by “a motley group of young writers, artists, political activists and recent college graduates”, according to the 2013 documentary short directed by Robert Thomas Hazen. Yes, the adjective ‘motley’ does mean ‘incongruously varied’, but there is definitely a sense of a value judgement here about this ‘difference’ or ‘disparateness’ somehow being unsavoury or unwholesome.
Just two years later in 1979, Samuel R. Delany would publish his own account of his six-month stint in the Heavenly Breakfast commune, also in New York. This was a ‘warts-and-all’ insider look at the commune experience, where the main source of income was dealing drugs, where the average number of people co-habiting at any one time was at least 16 and where, perhaps most importantly for the prurient reader, “Sex, for all practical purposes, was perpetual, seldom private, and polymorphous, if not perverse.”
However, Delany was also very much interested in the sociological imperatives behind the commune movement, an interest that would inform his own fiction like ‘Dhalgren’, not to mention his perennial fascination with thinkers like Spinoza, whose moral philosophy was “centred on the control of the passions leading to virtue and happiness,” according to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.
Well, there was certainly not much control exerted in Heavenly Breakfast, which seemed to vacillate permanently between utter chaos and random abandonment. Delany comments that: “Since there was no permanent, externally agreed-on social organisational structure, it’s accurate to say that everything that happens in the commune was because of ‘your’ or ‘my’ whim.”
“A commune?” Brother Francis asked. “Now what, exactly, is that?”
“Well,” Coca-Cola said, “it’s sort of…well, like a monastery. But it’s not religious. We live together, share things, take care of one another. We live – well, differently from the people around us.”
(If you’re wondering about the moniker ‘Coca-Cola’, the dude really has a passion for the soft drink.) Delany also debates the difference between a ‘commune’, a ‘collective’ and a ‘cooperative’. Unsurprisingly, the former is not particularly democratic, let alone an ideal platform for asserting one’s own identity.
While Delany does remark that he “learned to move within the circle of other’s people desire, and be at ease as I generated my own”, he adds: “If you’ve ever indulged the fantasy of being invisible, you’d probably like commune life.” This seems to be the central conundrum or contradiction of the commune in a nutshell.
A ‘collective’ and a ‘cooperative’ are much more like college fraternities in their social rigidity and adherence to heteronormative mores (and prohibitions). The commune wears its badge proudly as a ‘crash pad’, a ‘den of iniquity’ and a ‘rat hole’. I for the life of me cannot figure out why the bath was in the middle of the kitchen, but apparently this was a feature of East End apartments at the time.
Therefore it is perhaps inevitable that an essential aspect of communes is what Delay refers to as their ‘impermanence’. At Heavenly Breakfast, not a single organisational meeting was ever held. The centre cannot hold, to quote Yates, especially when there is no centre.
It is a remarkable experience to read ‘Faggots and their Friends’ and ‘Heavenly Breakfast’ as part of a larger dialectic about the commune experience and its lasting impact as a social movement. While the Delany book is ultimately a cautionary tale rooted in socio-political and psychological reality, Mitchell’s take has been memorably described as a ‘fairytale-cum-manifesto’.
It is difficult to even begin to describe the text, which initially started out as a children’s book, hence the fairytale nature. This bedtime story though is about a mythical kingdom called Ramrod, “an empire in decline ruled by the cruel patriarch, Warren-and-His-Fuck-pole.”
It is a series of allegorical vignettes where the titular ‘faggots’ live like the crowd in Heavenly Breakfast, with the aim to “produce art, have sex, and await the next revolution.” Mitchell’s take on the importance of dialectical history in the ongoing struggle for gay rights (yes, even in our own supposedly enlightened world) is really what makes this book so fascinating (and so endearingly funny):
The queer men continue to hope that the men will stop caring so much about who is or who is not sucking cock. If the men would stop caring so much, the queer men could then be men, only men who suck cock. They could eliminate the life that is despised and fugitive.
Delany’s only brush with a larger political context in ‘Heavenly Breakfast’ is his opening explanation of the title, a counter to the phrase the ‘Summer of Love’ (just as the commune itself is a counter to the concept of the ‘nuclear family’). It was a remarkably volatile period, marked by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and the shooting of Andy Warhol.
I think Delany deliberately chose to set ‘Heavenly Breakfast’ in a kind of socio-temporal bubble, with a granular focus instead on the day-to-day living and breathing of the commune itself. ‘Faggots and their Friends’ exists in a different kind of stasis. The fairytale nature adds a kind of timelessness (and surprising wistfulness) to the book. Together with friend and illustrator Ned Asta, Mitchell set out to record a decade of experimentation in what Morgan Bassichis calls in his introduction “radical communal living and queer friendship” from the 1960s to the 1970s.
Interestingly, Delany quite clearly emphasises the bisexuality of the Heavenly Breakfast commune as its main middle-finger gesture to the mainstream, instead of positioning it exclusively as a gay social experiment. This is probably what makes the Delany book the more nuanced and astute of the two. The Mitchell book is genuinely so weird that it seems to have been beamed in by rainbow from an alternate, deliriously gayer reality:
The faggots outstretch an invitation to us all to be a freak or a fairy, to snuggle and guzzle the cum of our friends, and be in the tender care collective of moonbeam and lilac and pine tree, hollyhock and loose tomato. I hope you’ll join me there.
August 15, 2012
A must read. It is sad that so many of us younger queers lost these nuggets to AIDS and heterosexual assimilation tactics.
June 22, 2022
5 / 5 stars
Queer history is incredibly valuable. Through every generation, queer people have existed and adapted to a hateful world, and these past practices have lead modern queer life to where it is now, flaws and all. Remembering resistance, joy, and pain are vital to future progress.
This work stands between the Stonewall riot and the AIDS epidemic. A cherished time in queer history that is often skipped to study more monumental occasions. But the importance of history does not only lie in the well-known experiences of past queers; it still holds value in the grey areas of time.
So I celebrated intercommunal worshipping between many subsects of the queer community and straight women, all who face extreme abuse under the patriarchy. It connects, feminism, queer activism, homophobia, misogyny, and toxic masculinity into an intersectional song of protest. They celebrate each other and create a marginalized community that provides a safe space, a utopia marginalized people today still dream of.
Aside from it being a testament to queer strength, the stories themselves are accompanied by beautiful artwork that thematically connect to ideas modern activists are still actualizing.
These visions from the past for the future are heartbreaking and complex. There is work to be done and healing to begin, but taking this message is to know that progress cannot be done alone.
Queer history is incredibly valuable. Through every generation, queer people have existed and adapted to a hateful world, and these past practices have lead modern queer life to where it is now, flaws and all. Remembering resistance, joy, and pain are vital to future progress.
This work stands between the Stonewall riot and the AIDS epidemic. A cherished time in queer history that is often skipped to study more monumental occasions. But the importance of history does not only lie in the well-known experiences of past queers; it still holds value in the grey areas of time.
So I celebrated intercommunal worshipping between many subsects of the queer community and straight women, all who face extreme abuse under the patriarchy. It connects, feminism, queer activism, homophobia, misogyny, and toxic masculinity into an intersectional song of protest. They celebrate each other and create a marginalized community that provides a safe space, a utopia marginalized people today still dream of.
Aside from it being a testament to queer strength, the stories themselves are accompanied by beautiful artwork that thematically connect to ideas modern activists are still actualizing.
These visions from the past for the future are heartbreaking and complex. There is work to be done and healing to begin, but taking this message is to know that progress cannot be done alone.
June 29, 2021
“The fairies knew that the earth will not tolerate the men much longer. The earth, scarred and gouged and stripped and bombed, will deny life to the men in order to stop the men. The fairies have left the men’s reality in order go destroy it by making a new one.” :’)
Love that this was originally planned to be a children’s book but has faggots in the title and features phrases like “tasty orgasm juice.”
Also Tourmaline’s preface in this 2019 edition is really beautiful and got me so excited to read the book!
Love that this was originally planned to be a children’s book but has faggots in the title and features phrases like “tasty orgasm juice.”
Also Tourmaline’s preface in this 2019 edition is really beautiful and got me so excited to read the book!
August 15, 2023
complètement grandiose et fantasque et enchanté, des petites pépites comme on n'en lit que rarement, qui font méditer et soupirer et prendre conscience de l'ampleur de nos histoires et de nos luttes
je l'ai lu en anglais, et ça a du sens de le préciser car jusqu'à il y a peu ça n'aurait pas été un choix mais une obligation étant donné que ce texte a dû attendre CINQUANTE ans pour être traduit en France mais que désormais il l'est et ça c'est SUPER, donc n'hésitez plus soutenez ces initiatives éditoriales géniales et le courage des travailleureuses du texte qui déterrent ainsi des textes pépites cachées et les rendent accessibles au grand public bravo !!!
mais de quoi ça parle alors ? c'est, tout simplement, un conte merveilleux (dans les deux sens du terme, tant dans le genre littéraire que dans la littérale merveillosité), écrit en 1973 si je ne dis pas de bêtises, c'est-à-dire à une époque où le VIH n'était pas encore apparu, où il n'avait pas encore marqué la communauté LGBT dans sa chair, où on n'avait pas encore connu ce grand basculement vers la honte, la mort et le silence.
et ça se sent.
ce conte, que Larry Mitchell avait à la base pensé écrire pour des enfants mais dont il s'est rendu compte à peu près page 4 que c'était en fait totalement pour des adultes, est imbibé d'une joie, d'un émerveillement, d'une malice, d'une irrévérence, d'une douceur qu'on a mis des années à reconquérir en tant que communauté après l'évidente et nécessaire colère militante qu'il a fallu déployer durant l'épidémie pour littéralement sauver les vies des nôtres. et c'est doux, et c'est beau de goûter à ça, à cette époque qui était loin d'être parfaite mais qu'on n'a pas pu connaître. ça raconte, à travers le filtre du merveilleux, de la magie et de l'anodin, des dynamiques sociales que l'on connaît encore aujourd'hui, de violence, de sexisme, d'homophobie, bien sûr, mais aussi et surtout, d'amour entre gays et lesbiennes, de solidarité intracommunautaire ET intercommunautaire, et tant d'autres échanges, relations et émotions qui ne sont ici pas labellisés par des grands mots théoriques à la con comme "intercommunautaire" mais tout simplement racontés comme les belles histoires qu'ils sont, et ça fait du bien. c'est magique et bizarre, c'est génial et très rare, ça ne ressemble à rien d'autre, ça nous fait nous dire qu'on a quand même beaucoup, beaucoup de chance d'être qui on est, ça mêle la rage à la joie, le combat au plaisir - et ça nous rappelle qu'il est temps de commencer à préparer cette fameuse troisième révolution.
je l'ai lu en anglais, et ça a du sens de le préciser car jusqu'à il y a peu ça n'aurait pas été un choix mais une obligation étant donné que ce texte a dû attendre CINQUANTE ans pour être traduit en France mais que désormais il l'est et ça c'est SUPER, donc n'hésitez plus soutenez ces initiatives éditoriales géniales et le courage des travailleureuses du texte qui déterrent ainsi des textes pépites cachées et les rendent accessibles au grand public bravo !!!
mais de quoi ça parle alors ? c'est, tout simplement, un conte merveilleux (dans les deux sens du terme, tant dans le genre littéraire que dans la littérale merveillosité), écrit en 1973 si je ne dis pas de bêtises, c'est-à-dire à une époque où le VIH n'était pas encore apparu, où il n'avait pas encore marqué la communauté LGBT dans sa chair, où on n'avait pas encore connu ce grand basculement vers la honte, la mort et le silence.
et ça se sent.
ce conte, que Larry Mitchell avait à la base pensé écrire pour des enfants mais dont il s'est rendu compte à peu près page 4 que c'était en fait totalement pour des adultes, est imbibé d'une joie, d'un émerveillement, d'une malice, d'une irrévérence, d'une douceur qu'on a mis des années à reconquérir en tant que communauté après l'évidente et nécessaire colère militante qu'il a fallu déployer durant l'épidémie pour littéralement sauver les vies des nôtres. et c'est doux, et c'est beau de goûter à ça, à cette époque qui était loin d'être parfaite mais qu'on n'a pas pu connaître. ça raconte, à travers le filtre du merveilleux, de la magie et de l'anodin, des dynamiques sociales que l'on connaît encore aujourd'hui, de violence, de sexisme, d'homophobie, bien sûr, mais aussi et surtout, d'amour entre gays et lesbiennes, de solidarité intracommunautaire ET intercommunautaire, et tant d'autres échanges, relations et émotions qui ne sont ici pas labellisés par des grands mots théoriques à la con comme "intercommunautaire" mais tout simplement racontés comme les belles histoires qu'ils sont, et ça fait du bien. c'est magique et bizarre, c'est génial et très rare, ça ne ressemble à rien d'autre, ça nous fait nous dire qu'on a quand même beaucoup, beaucoup de chance d'être qui on est, ça mêle la rage à la joie, le combat au plaisir - et ça nous rappelle qu'il est temps de commencer à préparer cette fameuse troisième révolution.
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June 10, 2018I read this last summer and regret not collecting/ sharing my thoughts sooner when they were fresher....
What a gem that's been polished and brought back to us! The reprinting of this is one of the strongest and best characteristics of small, radical presses: unearthing, reproducing, and distributing incredible, forgotten texts.
Something that really struck me while reading The Faggots was the use of identity, specifically idealized identity. At best, it can be a casual, playful, energizing idea that gives us strength and encouragement--definitely a lot of that in The Faggots (fueled by the various revolutions still playing out in the 1970s, I imagine!) At worst though, identity can be this ideal we're forced to live up. There was some throw away line at some point about how Faggots must always fulfill the sexual needs of each other (yikes!) that points to this slippery slope of when radical ideas and behavior become prescribed.
At the same time, The Faggots was filled with so many amazing observations (specific to the time it was written, and in that sense a invaluable window into the past, but also in general) and so many wonderful quotes! Like, just so many of them.
Glad to see this back in print!
What a gem that's been polished and brought back to us! The reprinting of this is one of the strongest and best characteristics of small, radical presses: unearthing, reproducing, and distributing incredible, forgotten texts.
Something that really struck me while reading The Faggots was the use of identity, specifically idealized identity. At best, it can be a casual, playful, energizing idea that gives us strength and encouragement--definitely a lot of that in The Faggots (fueled by the various revolutions still playing out in the 1970s, I imagine!) At worst though, identity can be this ideal we're forced to live up. There was some throw away line at some point about how Faggots must always fulfill the sexual needs of each other (yikes!) that points to this slippery slope of when radical ideas and behavior become prescribed.
At the same time, The Faggots was filled with so many amazing observations (specific to the time it was written, and in that sense a invaluable window into the past, but also in general) and so many wonderful quotes! Like, just so many of them.
Glad to see this back in print!
September 3, 2019
A book that seems to reignite a new generation of queer readers with every reprint, Larry Mitchell's unmistakably significant book "The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions" is the queer beginnings story that all queer people need.
A fantastical tale that tells the origin stories of queer people and projects a utopian ideal for how we can fight back against heteropatriarchy, this book truly is a book for our times. I find that the political time in which we are currently living often leaves us fretting about the future - often times even refusing to think or consider what it might look like - because of just how bleak it appears.
Mitchell challenges this and instead projects for us a future in which queer people, women, and other marginalized people can finally live in peace - free from the constricting gazes, policies, and ideas of those who hold power. This book reminds us that new futures are attainable and beautiful and worth fighting for even in the face of bleak and dark realities.
A fantastical tale that tells the origin stories of queer people and projects a utopian ideal for how we can fight back against heteropatriarchy, this book truly is a book for our times. I find that the political time in which we are currently living often leaves us fretting about the future - often times even refusing to think or consider what it might look like - because of just how bleak it appears.
Mitchell challenges this and instead projects for us a future in which queer people, women, and other marginalized people can finally live in peace - free from the constricting gazes, policies, and ideas of those who hold power. This book reminds us that new futures are attainable and beautiful and worth fighting for even in the face of bleak and dark realities.
June 6, 2022
"The strong women told the faggots that there are two important things to remember about the coming revolutions. The first is that we will get our asses kicked. The second is that we will win."
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH. this book is an incredible fable of gay resilience and happiness, and tells of scenes that are familiar to me and my friends. it is written in an exceedingly charming style, and i think about the kind-of-utopia it describes and cannot help smiling. the illustrations are beautiful. a must-read!
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH. this book is an incredible fable of gay resilience and happiness, and tells of scenes that are familiar to me and my friends. it is written in an exceedingly charming style, and i think about the kind-of-utopia it describes and cannot help smiling. the illustrations are beautiful. a must-read!
August 11, 2023
surprisingly whimsy tale of queers coming together to attempt to build a utopia in the middle of rubbish. i honestly haven’t seen anything close to this in modern queer books which is sad because while yes, cookie cutter romcoms can be fun, books like this that at its heart are so QUEER as a revolutionary act are soooooo important to morale and as a guide.
January 3, 2019
This is possibly the sweetest gay fantasy book written during the magical post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS epoch. It's a series of poems/stories about fairy men living in a community, spending time together, wearing spangles, and mocking straight society.
July 2, 2021
a beautiful, affirming, breath of fresh gay air !!!
July 16, 2020
i love faggots & dykes :-)
December 23, 2023
WOMEN WISDOM
The strong women told the faggots that there are two important things to remember about the coming revolutions. The first is that we will get our asses kicked. The second is that we will win.
The faggots knew the first. Faggot ass-kicking is a time-honored sport of the men. But the faggots did not know about the second. They had never thought about winning before. They did not even know what winning meant. So they asked the strong women and the strong women said winning was like surviving, only better. As the strong women explained winning, the faggots were surprised and then excited. The faggots knew about surviving for they always had and this was going to be just plain better. That made ass-kicking different. Getting your ass kicked and then winning elevated the entire enterprise of making revolution.
*
The faggots cultivate the most obscure and outrageous parts of the past. They cultivate those past events which the men did not want to happen and which, once they did happen, they wanted to forget. These are the parts the faggots love the best. And they love them so much that they tell the old stories over and over and then they act them out and then, as the ultimate tribute, they allow their lives to re-create those obscure parts of the past. The pain of fallen women and the triumph of defeated women are constantly and lovingly made flesh again. The destruction of witty faggots and the militancy of beaten faggots are constantly and lovingly made flesh again. And so these parts of the past are never lost. They are imprinted in the bodies of the faggots where the men cannot go.
The men want everyone to remember and commemorate only their moments of victory and plentitude. The men hope that only they have such moments. So history becomes a chronicle of wars and brutality and state splendor. Art attempts to transform men’s brutishness into men’s benevolence. The faggots know better. They know that one man’s victory means the defeat of others and that some men’s plentitude means that others go hungry. The faggots refuse to celebrate the men’s lies.
*
The men spread disease among the faggots, one of the things they love most to do to those they despise. The men will only cure diseases they themselves suffer from.
Once the faggots were overtaken by a new mysterious weak feeling. They could hardly leave their houses, they turned a bright yellow, they became unhappy and death seemed near. The men called it a name, but refused to help anyone who had this state. The men said this state arose from an overuse of the cock, which the faggots knew was a lie.
So the faggots stayed in their beds in their houses, reading the classic love texts, dreaming of a soulful revolution, drinking the potions that the strong women made for them until they were cured.
The strong women told the faggots that there are two important things to remember about the coming revolutions. The first is that we will get our asses kicked. The second is that we will win.
The faggots knew the first. Faggot ass-kicking is a time-honored sport of the men. But the faggots did not know about the second. They had never thought about winning before. They did not even know what winning meant. So they asked the strong women and the strong women said winning was like surviving, only better. As the strong women explained winning, the faggots were surprised and then excited. The faggots knew about surviving for they always had and this was going to be just plain better. That made ass-kicking different. Getting your ass kicked and then winning elevated the entire enterprise of making revolution.
*
The faggots cultivate the most obscure and outrageous parts of the past. They cultivate those past events which the men did not want to happen and which, once they did happen, they wanted to forget. These are the parts the faggots love the best. And they love them so much that they tell the old stories over and over and then they act them out and then, as the ultimate tribute, they allow their lives to re-create those obscure parts of the past. The pain of fallen women and the triumph of defeated women are constantly and lovingly made flesh again. The destruction of witty faggots and the militancy of beaten faggots are constantly and lovingly made flesh again. And so these parts of the past are never lost. They are imprinted in the bodies of the faggots where the men cannot go.
The men want everyone to remember and commemorate only their moments of victory and plentitude. The men hope that only they have such moments. So history becomes a chronicle of wars and brutality and state splendor. Art attempts to transform men’s brutishness into men’s benevolence. The faggots know better. They know that one man’s victory means the defeat of others and that some men’s plentitude means that others go hungry. The faggots refuse to celebrate the men’s lies.
*
The men spread disease among the faggots, one of the things they love most to do to those they despise. The men will only cure diseases they themselves suffer from.
Once the faggots were overtaken by a new mysterious weak feeling. They could hardly leave their houses, they turned a bright yellow, they became unhappy and death seemed near. The men called it a name, but refused to help anyone who had this state. The men said this state arose from an overuse of the cock, which the faggots knew was a lie.
So the faggots stayed in their beds in their houses, reading the classic love texts, dreaming of a soulful revolution, drinking the potions that the strong women made for them until they were cured.
July 3, 2019
Reading this inviting little faggot time capsule made me yet again contemplate and appreciate the power of unabashed fantasy – a word I choose over the utopia/dystopia binary. It's a slender volume comprised of connecting vignettes, each only a page or three long. The perspective is outside/adjacent to violent/oblivious straight society. All sorts of fags and trans people make an appearance, and there is not a mention that I can recall of sickness, plague, or AIDS. It really makes me wonder how the contemporaries of the author received this book, compared to how we in 2019 receive it. (I'm especially curious with regard to the depictions of the street queens and trans women...)
I first read this book thanks to a friend who lent me their copy, put out by Contagion Press, which "faithfully reproduces the long out of print edition by Calamus Books." As I write this, a new edition has been produced by Nightboat Books with essays and some other bonus material not in the original, and I see many people on social sharing their photos of the new red cover book. This book is also available in its entirety in PDF format.
Since the release of the Nightboat edition, I've seen many of my contemporaries posting about it on social media, and not a soul mentioning the Contagion edition. This makes me contemplate just how many important and historic bodies of writing are out there, which we just don't know about until someone makes the effort to uplift it, and how often people and their creative works are lost and forgotten to time/history.
I first read this book thanks to a friend who lent me their copy, put out by Contagion Press, which "faithfully reproduces the long out of print edition by Calamus Books." As I write this, a new edition has been produced by Nightboat Books with essays and some other bonus material not in the original, and I see many people on social sharing their photos of the new red cover book. This book is also available in its entirety in PDF format.
Since the release of the Nightboat edition, I've seen many of my contemporaries posting about it on social media, and not a soul mentioning the Contagion edition. This makes me contemplate just how many important and historic bodies of writing are out there, which we just don't know about until someone makes the effort to uplift it, and how often people and their creative works are lost and forgotten to time/history.
March 14, 2021
I love this book. From the 70s yet so fresh. It could replace the Bible? A history of faggots, fairies, queens, women, and patriarchy boiled down into fable and manifesto. Everything's said so succinctly, I find the present reality completely transformed. I love how there are sections called Women Wisdom, and the faggots learn from the women. In a note at the end, the author says he was originally trying to write a children's book. I'm mad this wasn't read to me as a child.
"All the men could be faggots or their friends. They once were. There still exists a faint memory of the past when the faggots and their friends were free. The memory lives in the faggots' bones. The memory appears at night when the bones are quietest. In darkness the faggots remember that once they lived in harmony with each other and their world."
"All the men could be faggots or their friends. They once were. There still exists a faint memory of the past when the faggots and their friends were free. The memory lives in the faggots' bones. The memory appears at night when the bones are quietest. In darkness the faggots remember that once they lived in harmony with each other and their world."
April 12, 2022
This collection of fable-like prose poems functions as a time capsule of ideas from the radical gay communes of the 1970s. The through-line is the conflict between "The Men," exemplars of toxic masculinity, and proponents of the coming (nonviolent) revolution, "The Strong Women," "Faggots," and "Faeries," who, along with people of color and various other sub-categories of what we now call "Queer," are committed to creating an anti-patriarchal, egalitarian, and eco-friendly society. I found the us vs. them dichotomy of this mythos unrealistically tidy, and its utopian vision is too hazy to act as a guide or blueprint. That said, the book's rather poetic description of life on the queer, countercultural margins is charming and rings true, while much of the wisdom imparted within its pages is timelessly apt.
July 30, 2021
Queer theory and fable stories... does it get better than that? Reading this was just so much fun. The paragraphs were decorated with illustrations, but the actual content of them was even better. This was a really short read, so if you’re interested in queer studies, please read this!!
We’re in a fantastical world of queens, f*ggots, fairies, and women who love women (these are the literal titles of each of these groups of people) who express themselves through love and friendship and protect each other against the harmful powers of the men. I’d like to say this is a children’s book for adults, which is an idea that popped into my head before reading the author’s note, where Mitchell writes that he intended it to be a children’s book at first.
While creating a magical world, Mitchell provides lovely commentary on the restrictions of the patriarchy, the necessity of communist ideals, and the importance of a f*ggot’s comfort in his identity. The best way for queer people to thrive in today’s world is to be who you are (for your prideeee!) and watch for those around us. Recommend!!!
We’re in a fantastical world of queens, f*ggots, fairies, and women who love women (these are the literal titles of each of these groups of people) who express themselves through love and friendship and protect each other against the harmful powers of the men. I’d like to say this is a children’s book for adults, which is an idea that popped into my head before reading the author’s note, where Mitchell writes that he intended it to be a children’s book at first.
While creating a magical world, Mitchell provides lovely commentary on the restrictions of the patriarchy, the necessity of communist ideals, and the importance of a f*ggot’s comfort in his identity. The best way for queer people to thrive in today’s world is to be who you are (for your prideeee!) and watch for those around us. Recommend!!!
May 29, 2022
There still exists a faint memory of the past when the faggots and their friends were free. The memory lives in the faggots’ bones. The memory appears at night when the bones are quietest.
this whole thing feels like healing
Read
August 8, 2023La préface est de qualité supérieure, et offre une ouverture sur la réflexion de vivre en "communauté queer" : idée très très plaisante qui est ensuite mise en place dans ce conte (au départ c'était plus visé public jeunesse) rafraîchissant, charmant et enchanteur (j'ai trop aimé les quelques pages qui reprennent de manière typographique les lieux que forment chaque petite communauté des pédales et de leurs ami.es). Voilà c'est chouette ça dit notre histoire, l'entraide nécessaire et des stratégies pour résister à la société hétéropatriarcale
May 1, 2024
A revolutionist fairytale-cum-wet-dream (*ahem*) of the power of queer friendship and community, finding utopia for a faggot in a man's world.
I'm gifting a copy of this to every queer person in my life.
~~~
FAGGOT WISDOM
There is more to be learned from wearing a dress for a day than there is from wearing a suit for a lifetime.
I'm gifting a copy of this to every queer person in my life.
~~~
FAGGOT WISDOM
There is more to be learned from wearing a dress for a day than there is from wearing a suit for a lifetime.
March 12, 2024
This text is the epitome of the importance of queer elders: the struggles, sense of community, hunger to survive and need for a revolution depicted in this 1970s book are not only inspiring and uplifting, but also something that is incredibly topical and essential to the younger generations. I’m so grateful to see works such as this reprinted and shared, because it’s through these radical voices that young queers can interact with views that problematize the assimilation ideals of our times. Many a time, the notions presented here seemed to directly target some of the most reactionary discourses going on in the LGBT+ community nowadays and its powerful stance on identity politics, anticapitalism and queer utopia were like a balm against them.
“The faggots and their friends and the women who love women know that for a while they can find some safety in the confusion they can create. They have some time to develop their resources to survive.
Yet at some point, collectively, they will begin to know that the men will continue as long as they continue. They can play with the men's categories to try to neutralize the men's guns. Yet this will not make them free. They begin to know, from the inside, that they cannot be free until this dance is stopped. The men will not stop for they have nothing else to do. This dance brings the men riches, power and fame and they will keep it going as long as they are able. The faggots and their friends and the women who love women can, they begin to know, stop and do no-thing. That is something for them to do. […] They will then be close to doing no-thing and therefore close to not being what the men created them to be. They will cease to be other and the men will begin to fear for their own sanity.
The men's needs are strong and overwhelming. They need the faggots and their friends in order to know who they are not. But the faggots and their friends will no longer need the men.”
January 7, 2024
the faggots have helped me believe that if we are to ever make it to that next revolution it will be through becoming undone, an undoing that touches ourselves and touches each other and all the brokenness we are.
September 14, 2022
this book is my queer bible
June 6, 2021
I absolutely loved this, I can’t wait to read it a million more times!! A very important and inspiring read
March 20, 2024
READING VLOG
"𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘴𝘮 𝘫𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦. 𝘚𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘵. 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘺, 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦."
Hey gay.
Especially you, yes you, you little young gays out there who didn't know that Stonewall happened because Judy Garland died. This book is the becomings of queer thought and place in a time when we were still kept in the shadows.
All you Troye Sivan twinks need to know where all of this came from. Where 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘎𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘌𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 came from. This entire book is essentially how we can come to terms with Sivan's rhetoric here.
Mitchell admits that this started off as a children's book. You see it in the playful, imaginative landscape that queerism is, was, always has been. With the whimsical drawings and the fable-like world-building.
All of you should pick this up. Don't forget that the old queens that felt that they were at the end of the worlds at the end of the bars in Hell's Kitchen and the Castro walked without walkers so all of you could run. Learn where all of this came from. Hillcrest, Church and Wellesley, Boystown, and god, WeHo. They all came from an elsewhere, an elsewhere so full of shame, but so full of beauty and heart.
So the next time you put on your Shein sheer tank or your stolen Sephora nail polish, remember that the pride, the bravery, was built off this tattered zine, passed along, gay to gay, kiss by kiss, to get to some kind of freedom, for us by us.
"𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘴𝘮 𝘫𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦. 𝘚𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘵. 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘺, 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦."
Hey gay.
Especially you, yes you, you little young gays out there who didn't know that Stonewall happened because Judy Garland died. This book is the becomings of queer thought and place in a time when we were still kept in the shadows.
All you Troye Sivan twinks need to know where all of this came from. Where 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘎𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘌𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 came from. This entire book is essentially how we can come to terms with Sivan's rhetoric here.
Mitchell admits that this started off as a children's book. You see it in the playful, imaginative landscape that queerism is, was, always has been. With the whimsical drawings and the fable-like world-building.
All of you should pick this up. Don't forget that the old queens that felt that they were at the end of the worlds at the end of the bars in Hell's Kitchen and the Castro walked without walkers so all of you could run. Learn where all of this came from. Hillcrest, Church and Wellesley, Boystown, and god, WeHo. They all came from an elsewhere, an elsewhere so full of shame, but so full of beauty and heart.
So the next time you put on your Shein sheer tank or your stolen Sephora nail polish, remember that the pride, the bravery, was built off this tattered zine, passed along, gay to gay, kiss by kiss, to get to some kind of freedom, for us by us.
November 27, 2022
Self-published in 1977, Larry Mitchell's The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions was fittingly put on my radar on a trip to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco about a year ago. It took a while to fit it into the reading queue, but I'm glad that I finally have made space for it. The work is a manifesto and a fairy tale at the same time and though the LGBTQ political climate has shifted dramatically since 1977, the community being brought into the dominant fold with its norms and customs, its calls to pleasure and liberation are just as timely as ever.
More than anything else Mitchell's book is a story old as time itself between oppressor and oppressed. It's a story of otherness and of the need of men in power to control the bodies of others (gays and women); it is by having an other, an oppressed group, that gives a raison d'être to the powers of the dominant group.
It's a story of empowerment and hope, imaginatively illustrated by Ned Asta, a book of unrealized possibilities and untapped potential. Now a cult classic, those who discover it today, who didn't live through the time, can only imagine having found the book then, during the waning days of sexual liberation and before the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, a time before the Internet when the book was passed along from the hands of one friend to another. It was a small gesture perhaps, but it takes only the smallest of gestures to set a revolution into motion.
More than anything else Mitchell's book is a story old as time itself between oppressor and oppressed. It's a story of otherness and of the need of men in power to control the bodies of others (gays and women); it is by having an other, an oppressed group, that gives a raison d'être to the powers of the dominant group.
It's a story of empowerment and hope, imaginatively illustrated by Ned Asta, a book of unrealized possibilities and untapped potential. Now a cult classic, those who discover it today, who didn't live through the time, can only imagine having found the book then, during the waning days of sexual liberation and before the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, a time before the Internet when the book was passed along from the hands of one friend to another. It was a small gesture perhaps, but it takes only the smallest of gestures to set a revolution into motion.
March 27, 2020
A gender/sexual anarchist manifesto that made my heart swell with solidarity. This is a work that reveals some unspeakable truths about queerness, queer freedom and joy –– it understands that it is only possible to do so if we leave realism behind. Mitchell packs into just over one hundred brief pages a resounding critique of cisheterosexuality, war, patriarchy, the state, and medico-psychiatry, in a way that feels not prescriptive but self-evident. Despite the frequently-painful events and experiences he alludes to, he also manages to pack the story with humor, too.
There is no better work to illuminate the relentless, revolutionary joy of queerness, which at the same time looks unflinchingly into the face of hatred, than this. A gorgeous, poetic novel-creed.
There is no better work to illuminate the relentless, revolutionary joy of queerness, which at the same time looks unflinchingly into the face of hatred, than this. A gorgeous, poetic novel-creed.
June 26, 2019
This book is both a beautiful artifact and a living, breathing blessing. Yes!!
April 7, 2020
this book made my heart sing. it made me feel like the sun was shining on my face, and it made me feel like the world i want to thrive in is tangible. truly a must read <3
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