We, Too, Must Love by Ann Aldrich (All Editions)

We, Too, Must Love is the 1958 sequel to We Walk Alone, written by Ann Aldrich, the pen name of Marijane Meaker. Written in direct response to the hundreds of letters Aldrich received after We Walk Alone‘s publication, the book surveys lesbian subcultures in and around New York City, examining class distinctions, social cliques (the Village crowd, the Uptown set, the Brooklyn community), the jobs lesbians held, attitudes toward alcohol and psychiatry, married lesbians, and bar culture. The book closes with a selection of reader letters. The 2006 Feminist Press reissue includes a new introduction by Marijane Meaker and an afterword by Stephanie Foote.

Genre: Pulp; Grier Rated; Checklist by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Subjects: Lesbianism; Lesbians; Lesbians – Fiction

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Comments

We, Too, Must Love occupies an unusual position in the early lesbian paperback canon. It is not quite fiction and not quite sociology — Aldrich frames it as journalism, drawing on her own experience and observation to map the social landscape of lesbian New York in the late 1950s. The chapter structure is its strength: by moving through distinct communities (the Village, Uptown, Brooklyn, Fire Island), the book captures real social stratification that most pulp fiction of the era flattened into a single tragic archetype.

That said, the book carries the limitations of its moment. Aldrich’s framing is sympathetic but often clinical, and the chapters on psychiatry and alcoholism reflect period assumptions that have aged poorly. The book is not a celebration of lesbian life so much as an earnest attempt to explain it to a mixed audience of lesbians, their families, and curious outsiders. Readers looking for affirmation will find the tone uneven. What the book does offer is specificity: the social geography it maps is detailed enough to function as a genuine document of mid-century urban lesbian culture.

The 2006 Feminist Press reissue gave the book a second life, adding Meaker’s own retrospective introduction and Stephanie Foote’s critical afterword, which contextualises the work within lesbian literary history. It appears in both the Grier checklist and the Marion Zimmer Bradley checklist, confirming its place as a recognised title in the field. The Gold Medal Giant paperback went through multiple printings through the mid-1960s; an Eclipse edition also exists but is undated.

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Publication History