We Both Laughed In Pleasure

The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan

by Lou Sullivan
edited by Ellis Martin and Zach Ozma 

“Celebratory, even radical”―The New Yorker

“Monumental”―Hyperallergic

We Both Laughed In Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan narrates the inner life of a gay man moving through the shifting social, political, and medical mores of the second half of the 20th century. Sullivan kept comprehensive journals from age 11 until his AIDS-related death at 39. Sensual, lascivious, challenging, quotidian and poetic, the diaries complicate and disrupt normative trans narratives. Entries from twenty-four diaries reveal Sullivan’s self-articulation and the complexity of a fascinating and courageous figure.

Paperback | 440 pages | Nightboat Books | 2019