City of Night (Rechy, John) [Paperback]

John Rechy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 13, 1994 | Series: Rechy, John

John Rechy, recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s William Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award, wrote City of Night in 1963. This radical and daring work, which launched Rechy’s reputation as one of America’s most courageous novelists, remains the classic document of the garish neon-lit world of hustlers, drag queens, and men on the make who inhabited the homosexual underground of the early sixties.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

When John Rechy's explosive first novel--now a classic--appeared in 1963, it became a national best-seller and ushered in a new era of gay fiction. Bold and inventive in his account of the urban underworld of male prostitution, Rechy is equally unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling "youngman" and his search for self-knowledge within the neon-lit world of hustlers, drag queens, and men on every kind of make. As the narrator moves from El Paso to Times Square, from Pershing Square to the French Quarter, we get an unforgettable look at life on the edge

"One of the major books to be published since World War II."--The Washington Post

"City of Night is a remarkable book.... Mr. Rechy writes in an authentic jive-like slang: the nightmare existence is explored with a clarity not often clouded by sentimentality and self-pity. The book therefore has the unmistakable ring of candor and truth."--The New York Times Book Review

"Rechy's tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own, and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful recklessness. tells the truth, and tells it with such passion that we are forced to share in the life he conveys. This is a most humbling and liberating achievement."--James Baldwin

"Probably no first novel is so complete, so well held together, and so important as City of Night."--The Houston Post

"[City of Night] illuminates, it stirs the heart, it is unforgettable."--Herbert Gold

John Rechy is the recipient of the PEN-USA West's Lifetime Achievement Award (he was the first novelist to be awarded the prize) and the Publishing Triangle's William Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the author of eleven other novels, among them Numbers, Rushes, The Sexual Outlaw (all from Grove Press), The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, and Our Lady of Babylon. His most recent novel, The Coming of the Night, was published by Grove Press in 1999. An NEA recipient, he is also the author of several plays, essays, and short stories. John Rechy lives in Los Angeles.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; Reissue edition (January 13, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965071919
• ISBN-13: 978-0802130839
• ASIN: 0802130836
• Product Dimensions: 1.1 x 5.3 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A gay "classic" enhanced by an eerily prophetic ending set in New Orleans September 20, 2005

By D. Cloyce Smith TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

It's easy to see why this book caused such a sensation when it was published in 1963. It's not because of the sexual descriptions, which are neither remotely erotic nor all that graphic--even for the early 1960s. Nor is it because of the Beat-genre prose and the in-your-face nihilism. Instead, "City of Night" brought to the light of day the darkest corners of the "gay underworld" (and, yes, Rechy uses the term "gay" here), and the book does it in a way that highlights the insecurities and the pretenses, the profligacy and the humanity of even the most jaded hustlers, "scores," and "queens" who fervently frequent the bars and speakeasies in metropolitan America.

The unnamed narrator has fled his hometown of New Orleans, initially for New York, and he finds himself both bored of the "respectable" jobs he manages to find and intrigued by the easy money (not to mention the ready drugs, the nervous thrill, and the artificial freedom) that comes from being a male prostitute. Like many of his associates, the narrator tries to convince himself that he is only "gay for pay"--that his activities are no more than a job and that in the real world he would sleep with women. But gradually he realizes that this conviction, for him and for most of the others, is little more than a pose. Among the book's many themes is the tension between the futility of the closet and its ultimate necessity (let's not forget that, in much of the country, it was illegal for two men to dance together or to wear women's clothing).

Each chapter scrutinizes the bar scene and focuses on a different type (sometimes bordering on stereotype), from the flamboyant drag queen to the aging hustler to the married man to the older women whose guilt over a long-kept secret motivates her to tend to street boys. There are passages and scenes that will, of course, seem dated (or--to use a less loaded term--of historical interest), but many of the characters are, forty years later, hilariously and scarily recognizable.

Finally--for reasons Rechy could not have fathomed--the most disconcerting section of the book is the last one, which is set in New Orleans. The eeriness of finishing this book at a time like this (early September 2005) is that certain passages take on a prophetic tone. The environs around the French quarter are "merely the remnants of what may have been; a city scarred by memories of an elegance and gentility which may have never existed. A ghost city." And later: "An almost Biblical feeling of Doom--of the city about to be destroyed, razed, toppled--assaults you." The narrator's love-hate relationship with the Big Easy--with its celebratory abandon and its remorseful gloom--instills the novel's finale with an intensity both haunting and unforgettable.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not just a "gay" novel. . . August 4, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Although that is one of its facets. This book, both for all of its cynicism, has a generosity towards the human race, encompassing and striving to understand those who are its most marginalized members: sexual minorities, hustlers, bums, floozies, drunks, junkies. . .all of those who are traditionally swept under the mat. I haven't read it since I was twenty, but in those long-ago, mid-80's days, I read it to tatters, and I've never forgotten it (and I'm a straight-but-not-narrow female). Read it. You'll remember it always.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic City Still Burns Bright October 10, 2003

By Daniel Olivas

Format:Paperback

Though it's been forty years since its publication, John Rechy's "City of Night" still packs an emotional wallop. The novel's storyline is well-known: Rechy writes of one young male hustler who wanders from El Paso to New York to Los Angeles to New Orleans meeting and experiencing male customers, drag queens, tough men and "nellies." While partaking of this life, he is also observing the pain and joy of a world filled with "youngmen" and those who are no longer young. Will he find meaning in any of it? Will he come to terms with his sexual orientation? The answers are not clear. But in the end it doesn't really matter. The prose is powerful, the dialogue poignant and, at times, hilarious. This is a remarkable and unforgettable book that should be read by everyone.