Challenging the borders between autobiography, memory, history and fiction, this interactive memoir presents a diverse array of personal materials by and about John Rechy and sets them against larger collective histories of Chicano culture and the gay world. Drawing passages from all of Rechy's published novels, it also mines the outrageous fictions that circulate around this fascinating literary figure who, as a gay icon, a Chicano writer from Texas, a dedicated bodybuilder, a gifted teacher of creative writing, and a recent recipient of the PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award, has long been a subject of notoriety and fantasy. Combining original artwork, video, archival documents, and recorded interviews and commentaries, it lets you move through three interrelated realms--Memories, Bodies, and Cruising--each with its own daring repertoire of interfaces.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
John Rechy is a first generation Mexican American novelist who was born in El Paso, Texas and who in 1997 received PEN-USA-West's Lifetime Achievement Award. He came to world attention in 1963 with the publication of his first novel, City of Night, which revealed the previously unknown world of gay hustling and immediately became a best seller and an American classic. Finding it difficult to believe that someone so young who knew that world so intimately could possibly be such a brilliant writer, many critics at first speculated that the book must have been written from another's experience by an established writer under a pseudonym—perhaps James Baldwin or Tennessee Williams. The book had a profound influence on many other artists, including Jim Morrison, David Bowie, Gus van Sant, and David Hockney. Rechy went on to write eleven more novels, which have been translated into over a dozen languages and which are frequently taught in university courses.
With subsequent provocative works on the gay world, such as Numbers, The Sexual Outlaw, and Rushes, he has remained a controversial and influential figure. With later works like The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez and some of his essays, he has also become an important figure in Chicano literature. In fact, all of his protagonists are Mexican American, and a number of them are female (as in Marilyn's Daughter and Our Lady of Babylon as well as in Amalia Gomez). He is also the author of three plays, several short stories, and many essays on a wide range of topics—gay politics, bodybuilding, book reviews. He was also a journalist for the Texas Observer and The Nation, championing many leftist political causes. In the early 1970s when Rechy settled in Los Angeles, he began teaching writing courses that have become legendary—first at Occidental College, then at UCLA, and now in the Masters in Professional Writing Program at USC. Many of the students in his workshops have published novels and plays, and won Emmy's and Oscars, but still continue under his tutelage, claiming he is a master teacher.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Magic Multimedia Tour,
By A Customer
This review is from: Mysteries and Desire: Searching the Worlds of John Rechy (CD-ROM)
As many times as I have explored this amazing multimedia CD-ROM, I constantly find something new to appreciate. A photograph in a collage that links to an artifact with the voice of John Rechy revealing new meaning...a path through a thicket of trees that reveals the author standing shirtless above his beloved city.... Mysteries and Desire is a masterful, extraordinary work whose technique rises to the level of its subject. Anyone interested in John Rechy, literature, digital content or new media should not miss this experience.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Esstential Companion Piece!,
By karah (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Mysteries and Desire: Searching the Worlds of John Rechy (CD-ROM)
Already own all 13 of Rechy's books? ... Got a copy of *Numbers* from a friend once, but never read anything else? ... Only know *City of Night* because it's on that list of "modern classics" you should have read? ... Well, no matter what your level of exposure to Rechy's brilliance, if he's an author you long to learn more about, this CD-ROM can help. Filled with fascinating images from his personal archives, it also contains multimedia pieces which dramatize and synthesize the themes of Memories, Bodies, and Cruising. One feature sure to please Rechy fans who haven't had the chance to meet him, is the use of the author's voice for narrative pieces and book excerpts. Nonetheless, if you're looking for a definitive bibliography, or expecting a project resembling a flashy "book report" on Rechy, this CD-ROM is not the place to start. (For that sort of treatment, go to the library and/or search the Web). This CD-ROM will not familiarize you with all his writings, or give you biographical trivia, in the traditional sense -- but it does illuminate the style and substance of his work, and reveal aspects of his life, in new ways. As to the CD-ROM itself: I would have preferred more detailed installation and navigation instructions -- but didn't have any great difficulty getting the various components up and running. Overall content seemed rather sparse once I started exploring it, and I kept wanting more detail and depth -- but that's to be expected. After all, there's only so much space on any CD-ROM, and no amount could be "enough" or "too much" when reveling in the beauty, passion, and glory of a work.
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