Joe Westmoreland

Tramps Like Us is a modern-day Huckleberry Finn. It's an all-American story about the search for home, for a better life, feeling like a refugee in one's own country. It's about creating a family from a group of misfits. It tells what it was like to come of age in the era between gay liberation and the beginning of the AIDS crisis.

Tramps Like Us

Some books you pick up and immediately realise that this is going to hurt. And oh boy, was this expectation proven to be right in this case.

Tramps like us invites the reader to witness the journey of narrator Joe, who navigates through the US, various cities, a very formative decade (the 1980s) and his own drive to find a home among misfits. With glimpses of his past, the narrator eases the reader into his present and allows him to tag along on a wild ride through the entirety of the United States, making friends, falling in and out of love, finding home among the unexpected company and always, always finding the high side of life (pun, unfortunately, intended). He allows us, the readers, to bear witness to wonderful moments of companionship, heartbreak, the loneliness probably only few readers can relate to and twists and turns of a life lived not on a linear schedule.

Something that left me really impressed was the factual style of storytelling the narrator uses, yet never creates a distance to the reader. Even if there was not much of a descriptive style of writing, I noticed myself quickly falling in love with this band of societal outcasts, minorities and misfits. Through narrator Joe’s eyes, he painted with clear and precise strokes a picture of this family he found in various cities, with members adding to the bunch and some leaving to their own fates at some point.

This clear, concise storytelling was a stark contrast to an unreliable narrator under the influence of substances, heightened emotions and on the journey to find love, for others and himself, and companionship. It was fascinating, how easily I was dragged into this world that is so foreign to me in more than one sense and started to understand more and more with each chapter, what formed the narrator, his troubles and strengths as well.

This is a story of friendship, of celebrating the high life even if in darker places, of finding new people, of family that is not blood related, of heartbreak, of loneliness, of searching for substitutes, of friendship and companions for a while, of uprooting life, of never standing still, of depression, of life altering diseases and life ending pacts between the people who love each other in more than the romantic sense. This also is a story of utter tragedy. And of comedy, at points. This is a story of life fully lived.

I would love to talk about this book on and on, but I probably would just be reiterating the same few points over and over, which is why I truly recommend reading this yourself. I was not ready for the final chapter, and it did leave me sobbing.

As a final note, I would like to extend my thanks to the publisher and netgalley, for providing me with a digital copy of this book prior to its re-release. To the author, I would like to express my utmost gratitude not only for a copy, but for the book itself, for sharing his story with us through narrator Joe and for letting us witness the life he led with all its bends and twists. I hope you’re as well as can be and I hope you are surrounded by love for many more years to come. Thank you.

Leonie

Some books you pick up and immediately realise that this is going to hurt. And oh boy, was this expectation proven to be right in this case.

Tramps like us invites the reader to witness the journey of narrator Joe, who navigates through the US, various cities, a very formative decade (the 1980s) and his own drive to find a home among misfits. With glimpses of his past, the narrator eases the reader into his present and allows him to tag along on a wild ride through the entirety of the United States, making friends, falling in and out of love, finding home among the unexpected company and always, always finding the high side of life (pun, unfortunately, intended). He allows us, the readers, to bear witness to wonderful moments of companionship, heartbreak, the loneliness probably only few readers can relate to and twists and turns of a life lived not on a linear schedule.

Something that left me really impressed was the factual style of storytelling the narrator uses, yet never creates a distance to the reader. Even if there was not much of a descriptive style of writing, I noticed myself quickly falling in love with this band of societal outcasts, minorities and misfits. Through narrator Joe’s eyes, he painted with clear and precise strokes a picture of this family he found in various cities, with members adding to the bunch and some leaving to their own fates at some point.

This clear, concise storytelling was a stark contrast to an unreliable narrator under the influence of substances, heightened emotions and on the journey to find love, for others and himself, and companionship. It was fascinating, how easily I was dragged into this world that is so foreign to me in more than one sense and started to understand more and more with each chapter, what formed the narrator, his troubles and strengths as well.

This is a story of friendship, of celebrating the high life even if in darker places, of finding new people, of family that is not blood related, of heartbreak, of loneliness, of searching for substitutes, of friendship and companions for a while, of uprooting life, of never standing still, of depression, of life altering diseases and life ending pacts between the people who love each other in more than the romantic sense. This also is a story of utter tragedy. And of comedy, at points. This is a story of life fully lived.

I would love to talk about this book on and on, but I probably would just be reiterating the same few points over and over, which is why I truly recommend reading this yourself. I was not ready for the final chapter, and it did leave me sobbing.

As a final note, I would like to extend my thanks to the publisher and netgalley, for providing me with a digital copy of this book prior to its re-release. To the author, I would like to express my utmost gratitude not only for a copy, but for the book itself, for sharing his story with us through narrator Joe and for letting us witness the life he led with all its bends and twists. I hope you’re as well as can be and I hope you are surrounded by love for many more years to come. Thank you.

Tramps Like Us

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