Vivid stories of hard-partying Chicago trans women in the 2020s—right here, right now

"Sloane Murphy shows why fun is fun, honesty hurts, and friendships are heartbreak."
—Alice Stoehr, author of Again, Harder

Agnes can’t deal with the coke and the whiskey. Joan’s been getting a little success, it’s not really working out for her. Sybil’s still insane, I saw her last week at the bars, she was screaming at Sara. Maybe actually someone screamed at her when she tried to make fun of Clara for not shaving her eyebrows correctly. It was just before she got hit by that car. Jenny and Joan had to pick her up from Thorek Memorial. Freddie’s still Freddie, but I heard her mom showed up at some point. Just on her doorstep. Orla and Kate finally got around to dating. They broke up though. Carolina? Well she got that job with the Sanitation department, and she hasn’t really been around since.

In this crackling collection of stories, Sloane Murphy shows a beautiful and wrecked scene of young Chicago trans women. With the clairvoyance of Michelle Tea and the precision of Raymond Carver, Shut Up, I Love You, I’ll Call You Tomorrow is a conduit of bleary electricity inside a stubborn, still-beating heart.

WOMEN HAVING SEX — Startlingly bold and refreshingly clear, these stories show sex as young partying women actually have it, with accordingly galactic levels of drama and the dark end at the road of substance abuse. Like a trans Michelle Tea, Murphy maps a new landscape of sex in the post-OKCupid era

SHORT AND SNAPPY — Fast and thick with meaning as Raymond Carver on cocaine. Clocking in at 136 pages, you can finish this book by day and wave it around at the bar by night.

QUEER MIDWEST LIFE — From Andrea Lawlor to Alison Bechdel, there exists a vibrant queer Midwest culture that only shows up in books occasionally, and punches above its weight when it does.

COOL RETRO PULPY DESIGN — with mass-market dimensions, the physical book will be compact enough to fit in a pocket, read secretively on the night shift, at the cash register or behind the wheel—all with a '70s-style cover design reminiscent of sodium-orange streetlight and analog vices.

CHEAP — Book prices keep going up. But at $16.95, Murphy rows against the inflation tide!

FOR FANS OF — Nelson Algren, Eileen Myles, Chris Kraus, and the L Word