Although Scottish-Mexican-American
John Rechy
doesn't want to be ghettoized as a gay writer, his most important work
pioneered a new type of literature honestly depicting men who have sex
with men. In 1963 his first novel,
City of Night
,
followed the aimless encounters of a nameless hustler turning tricks in
New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans, crosscut with memories of his
childhood in El Paso. By making his protagonist anonymous and
introducing a succession of minor characters seen only briefly, Rechy
re-emphasized the sensation of hustling for the reader. (He knew his
trade: He
continued to work as a prostitute on Santa Monica Blvd
even after the book became a surprise hit, even after he became a
professor at UCLA, even after he turned forty.) Decades later in
2003, a NYT critic called
City of Night a "bona fide cult
classic," "deservedly considered a milestone of transgressive fiction."
That was not the consensus when it first appeared. And after thirteen
books, his literary awards are limited to an NEA grant and lifetime
achievement recognitions from PEN West, Publishing Triangle, and the
ONE Foundation.
Rechy's second novel, Numbers
, trod the same path as City of Night but
from another direction: a slightly older Johnny Rio returns to L.A. for
a ten day binge not as an escape but to recapture his previous glory;
some readers see Johnny Rio as using sex not merely to confirm his
desirability but also as a means to find a greater connection and begin
to forge a gay identity. For 1967, that was a big step. Among Rechy's
ten other novels are Rushes, Bodies and Souls, The Coming of Night, Marilyn's Daughter (about a girl who believes herself to the love child of Marilyn Monroe and Bobby Kennedy), and his much-praised The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez
. His three works of nonfcition are The Sexual Outlaw, Beneath the Skin: Collected Essays, and last year's memoir, About My Life and the Kept Woman, which the best read man in the East Village says is very good. Seventy-six today, Rechy lives in West
Hollywood with Michael, his partner of twenty-nine years.
Best read man in the east village? Can Band of Thebes start a series of blind items posts? I'm guessing L.D. Beghtol or an NYU Prof. Where does Philip Brian Harper live?
Posted by: benjamin | March 10, 2010 at 07:45 AM