The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions

Oppression births art, hatred inspires love, and revolutions bring change. It would be easy to say that these are the main ideals Larry Mitchell had in mind when he created the astounding, dangerous, oppressive, and fantastical world of The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions—but there is so much more to discover inside the book’s pages, including playful, erotic illustrations by Ned Asta.

Part gay manifesto, part collection of fantastical vignettes, Mitchell’s book is one of the defining pieces of 1970s queer literature. . . It’s worth trying to track down a copy of the 2019 reissue which was put out by Nightboat Books and features a stunning preface by artist Tourmaline.

In celebration of Pride month, June Shanahan spoke with Morgan Bassichis about The Faggots and Their Friends, the faggotry of Lavender Hill and their friends, and what they’ve been up to between revolutions ✨?✨ read more on the Nightboat Blog!

Inspired by Mitchell and Asta’s life in communes such as Lavender Hill in Ithaca, New York, the book feels like a small treasure, a care package from another era providing a witty blueprint in creating chosen family and world-making outside of dominant institutions. Though it was out-of-print for years, The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions was certainly never out of circulation, exchanged between friends and lovers throughout the years.

Beauty is currency; sexuality is sustenance. But more valuable than that is friendship—which usually involves some degree of sexual intimacy. Pleasure will keep you going. So will humor, possibly more effectively.

First published in 1977 by Mitchell’s own Calamus Press, The Faggots has circulated in PDF form in recent years, shared across the Internet as both queer consolation and fuel for fighting. Nightboat Books has now brought it back into print with introductory essays by filmmaker Tourmaline and performer Morgan Bassichis. Not quite speculative fiction, not quite allegory, and not quite polemic, The Faggots surveys a dystopian empire called Ramrod in its twilight years, where state agents struggle to enforce heteropatriarchal discipline as their kingdom crumbles around them.

The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions is a gossamer, sex-driven fantasy – and/or manifesto – and/or survival guide – for the moral and mental uplift of radical queers. It’s our story of perseverance in the empire of Ramrod. Ruled by “rich men without color,” Ramrod is a falling, failing power known for its fierce weapons and elaborate violence. Fashion-wise, the rich men without color only wear grey but that’s OK; the faggots wear all the other colors.

Recently reprinted and now in the process of being translated to Spanish, The Faggots is a record of the queer hope, love, and militancy that informs the current moment—“an ode to,” as Mitchell writes, “the old faggots who were there and helped make this happen just by being there.”