Tramps Like Us, Joe Westmoreland
Tramps Like Us, Joe Westmoreland
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Tramps Like Us
A Novel

Author: Joe Westmoreland, Eileen Myles

Narrator: Nick Monteleone

Unabridged: 10 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/03/2025

Categories: Fiction, Lgbtq+


Synopsis

Abused by his father and stifled by closeted life as a teenager in Kansas City, Joe, the wide-eyed narrator of Tramps Like Us, graduates from high school in 1974 and hits the road hitchhiking. But it isn't until he reunites with Ali, his hometown's other queer outcast, that Joe finds a partner in crime. When the two of them finally wash up in New Orleans, they discover a hedonistic paradise of sex, drugs, and music, a world that only expands when they move to San Francisco in 1979.

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. As Eileen Myles writes, "I love this book most of all because it is so mortal."

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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carl on June 23, 2025

"I ran away from home the first time when I was four years old." Originally published in 2001, Tramps Like Us by Joe Westmoreland is an epic‐style semi-autobiographical novel about his life as a gay man during the 1960s through to the 1980s in the USA. In less than 30 pages, the reader gets the real......more

Goodreads review by Dennis on August 12, 2025

I loved Joe’s conversational voice. It read as if we were good friends and he was telling me stories. When it was finished, I felt like I had lost a buddy.......more

Goodreads review by Em on September 16, 2025

this is easily the best book I have read this year and definitely an all time top. I have not had a book captivate or make me sob like this is so long it was so refreshing. The last chapters I had to put the book down and collect myself before continuing because I was such a mess. Queer-chosen famil......more

Goodreads review by ezra on April 23, 2025

Thank you to NetGalley and MCD for this ARC! “Tramps Like Us” is a semi-autobiographical novel telling the partially fictionalised story of author Joe Westmoreland’s life, from growing up in 1960s and 70s Missouri to moving around the United States, living in places such as New Orleans and San Franci......more

Goodreads review by Patrick on June 23, 2025

I didn't understand why I'd never heard of this book, which should be up there in defining queer literature, until I read the afterward by the author. Tramps Like Us was published in April 2001. A week later, its publisher suffered a heart attack, and the author and his team decided to push the book......more