Specifications
| Format | Paperback |
| Pages | 128 |
| Year Published | 2019 |
Larry Mitchell (1939-2012) was the author of many works of fiction that explored queer life and radical politics in New York City's Lower East Side and East Village in the 1980s and 90s. Mitchell founded Calamus Press, an early small press devoted to gay literature. And with Felice Picano and Terry Helbing, co-founded Gay Presses of New York in 1981. Mitchell received a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University, and was a professorat the College of Staten Island for 25 years. In addition to The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions (1977), his novels include The Terminal Bar (1982), In Heat (1986), My Life as a Mole and Other Stories (1988), which won a Lambda Literary Award, and Acid Snow (1993). He helped form multiple communes, including one on Staten Island-which collectively wrote the Great Gay in the Morning: One Group's Approach to Communal Living and Sexual Politics, published in 1972 by Times Change Press-and one outside of Ithaca, NY, called Lavender Hill, which is the subject of a 2013 documentary by Austin Bunn.
Ned Asta born in Brooklyn, New York, has been a member of the Moosewood Restaurant Collective in Ithaca, New York since 1980 and was a founding member of the Lavender Hill Commune. Asta was a member of the New York City queer theater troupe Hot Peaches in the late 1970s, and later co-founded the Breast Cancer Alliance of Ithaca, with Andi Gladstone.
More Info
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.Oh! This book is so delicious and timeless! Open the pages, enter the fantastical, familiar empire of Ramrod, and hear someone whisper to you: here are the ways to survive. This cult classic is in the lineage of pleasure activism - you must read it and then pass it along to someone who needs to be reminded that their freedom is necessary for all of us. This is a guide and an escape, whimsical and practical. Hit this pipe. Again."
-Adrienne Maree Brown
“It’s 1977. The faggots, the women, the fairies and the queens have each other for love, sex and inspiration. They have the natural world, music, the body, feelings, crannies of cities in which to be, believe, touch, dance, dream, fuck, and grow. This was the liberation vision of Larry Mitchell from another time, another consciousness. With this new edition of The Faggots and Their Friends we can remember the collectivity of fun and pleasure and the necessary faith of silly hope as part of our legacy and wish for survival.” - Sarah Schulman