We Both Laughed in Pleasure by Lou Sullivan

The prominent three or four lovers in Lou's life are reduced to a single letter for their name, while everyone else gets their full name (insofar as Lou knew it, such as Beau) published, including friends and family members. Oh-and one thing I noticed is that the editors aren't consistent with redacting information, such as names.

Weirdly enough there's comparatively very little about his transition, which was at least part of what attracted me to this book in the first place. Maybe that's all they wanted to focus on-Lou's sexuality. That said, the blurb from the publisher on one of the last pages (describing itself as publishing 'sacred pornography') perhaps speaks for itself. Surely he wrote about more than that? Again, without the dates, it's hard to tell, but I felt like I had a really incomplete picture of Lou. I also wish the editors had included entries other than his musings on sex and sexuality. It makes it difficult to follow what happens when, how much time has passed, etc., leaving the reading of his diaries feeling like I'm reading a work of fiction by a writer who has no idea how to strike a plot. that they left out the dates of the entries is egregious. (When? How? With whom?)Īnd while I appreciate the editors' choice to leave out each day's 'Dear Diary'. For example, in one entry Lou comments that he wishes he could learn how to have sex 'like a gay man', and in another entry not a few pages onward he mentions doing so with a new lover, as if he's learned the practicalities in the interim. Perhaps not intentionally (after all, we're talking thirty years of near-daily journaling), but their choices leave me scratching my head. Stupendously awkward-which is rather a shame, because who wants a book they can only read at home?Īs for their editing-it honestly feels to me like they mangled Lou's diaries.

Between the title (which is frankly beautiful, and could work well if paired with a tasteful cover) and the naked butt, it looks to a casual passer-by like erotica. Lou's sexually-explicit musings) don't bother me at all, I'm not comfortable carrying this with me on the bus to work (let alone to work at all). Why couldn't they just put a photo of Lou? Or something-dare I say anything?-other than a naked butt? I'm a conservative gay man in Wisconsin and, while the interior content (i.e. My issues are with the editors, in both their editing choices and their choices of cover. Firstly-my three stars have nothing to do with Lou's words.

We Both Laughed in Pleasure by Lou Sullivan