John Rechy

When John Rechy's explosive first novel appeared in 1963, it marked a radical departure in fiction, and gave voice to a subculture that had never before been revealed with such acuity. It earned comparisons to Genet and Kerouac, even as Rechy was personally attacked by scandalized reviewers. Nevertheless, the book became an international bestseller, and fifty years later, it has become a classic. Bold and inventive in style, Rechy is unflinching in...

Compelling and ferociously relevant, The Fourth Angel is the story of four teenagers playing deadly games with drugs, sex, and one another. Behind a facade of tough cynicism, on a raging search for kicks, they explore the hot, dusty city, bent on trouble. There are three "angels"-Shell, Cob, and Manny-and their recruit Jerry, who becomes the fourth. Hovering in that uncertain limbo between childhood and adulthood, the four angels maintain a precarious...

John Rechy-described by Gore Vidal as "one of the few original writers of the last century"-delivers a riotous bildungsroman that pays homage to the classic eighteenth-century picaresque. Loosely inspired by Fielding's Tom Jones, The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens follows the journey of handsome Lyle Clemens as he travels through the religious fundamentalist world of Texas to the gambling palaces of Las Vegas and the enticing traps of Los Angeles's...

Rechy's long-awaited memoir, About My Life and the Kept Woman, is the author's first open treatment of his life and a testament to the power of pride and self-acceptance. Raised Mexican-American in El Paso, Texas, at a time when Latino children were routinely segregated, Rechy was often assumed to be Anglo because of his light skin, and had his name changed" for him by a teacher, from Juan to John. As he grew older and as his fascination with the...

An exceptional novel from the bestselling author of the modern classic City of Night, Bodies and Souls is a portrait of modern Los Angeles on an epic scale, "the most spiritual and physical of cities." Gorgeous, seedy, and striving, the Los Angeles of Rechy's imagination is a magnetic city that draws to it the nation's brightest and darkest energies-characters that include a female porn superstar; a young Chicano punk-rock fan; a Bel Air matron and...

Johnny Rio, a handsome narcissist but no longer a pretty boy, travels to Los Angeles, the site of past sexual conquest and remembered youthful radiance, in a frenzied attempt to recreate his younger self. Johnny has ten precious days to draw the numbers, the men who will confirm his desirability, and with the hungry focus of a man on borrowed time, he stalks the dark balconies of all-night theaters, the hot sands of gay beaches, and shady glens of...

A modern epic that follows a young woman as she travels to Los Angeles and delves deep into the maze of untold Hollywood history in order to determine whether she is Marilyn Monroe's secret lovechild.

John Rechy's new novel is a return to the themes and scenes of his classic, best-selling City of Night and a bittersweet memorial to a lost world - gay Los Angeles in the moment before AIDS. It is 1981, a summer night, and an unscripted ritual is about to take place. Young, beautiful Jesse is celebrating one year on the dazzling gay scene and plans to lose himself completely in its transient pleasures. He is joined by Dave, a leatherman bent on testing...