Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Stories Books & Cafe, Los Angeles
"[A] minor classic, one that packs in vastly more life than many more serious novels do . . . A novel that tastes life at first hand; it’s a palate cleanser for jaded appetites." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times A treasured cult classic following a young gay man crisscrossing 1970s and ’80s America in search of salvation. Told with openhearted frankness, Joe Westmoreland’s Tramps Like Us is an exuberantly soulful adventure of self-discovery and belonging, set across a consequential American decade. In New Orleans and San Francisco, and on the roads in between, Joe and Ali find communities of misfits to call their own. The days and nights blur, a blend of LSD and heroin, new wave and disco, orgies and friends, and the thrilling spontaneity of youth—all of which is threatened the moment Joe, Ali, and seemingly everyone around them are diagnosed with HIV. But miraculously, the stories survive. Back in print after two decades and with an introduction by Myles and an afterword by the author, Tramps Like Us is an ode to a nearly lost generation, an autofictional chronicle of America between gay liberation and the AIDS crisis, and an evergreen testament to the force of friendship.