John Rechy

'City of Night' can be a difficult book to get into. We follow a nameless narrator, after a brief and significant look at his childhood in El Paso and education, as he experiences the hustling scenes of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New Orleans. The novel was an understandable sensation when it came out in 1963. It is a completely unapologetic, vivid, and compassionate look at gay male life in the 1950s. We have only one main character, but many of the people he fleetingly comes into contact with have a sense of authenticity to them. Miss Destiny in particular was a favorite, but from The Professor to Jeremy there were so many lessons to learn. The book is saturated with the self-loathing of the narrator, a feeling shared by most if not all of the characters here, and Rechy shows the feeling for the trap it is.

Rechy may not consider himself a beat writer, but he was of that generation and the prose here is stripped of apostrophes and many words are compounded, like the ubiquitous youngman or sexhunger, which helps the stream-of-conciousness flow. Of the many significant secondary characters that our youngman interacts with, a common theme emerges of self-deception, denial, and fear of trust. This is a portrait of a community on the edge of something. They just want to have a good time, be themselves, are (mostly) not bothering anybody not asking for it, but are pushed around by cops, taken advantage of by those with power, and are left vulnerable so only the cautious and hardbitten survive. None escape without trauma. The novel is tragedy, but there are scenes here where Rechy shows the rebellion that's coming.

This is not a happy novel. There is something like a silver-lining involved to the journey, but this book is more significant for it's portrayal of queer men and trans women across a spectrum. There are a few female characters, not enough, but the choice makes sense considering the novel is centered on gay sex work. 'City of Night' shows the gay community as being a broad, fractured entity. As diverse in appearance and behavior as everybody else. I'm stunned by it. Unlike so many other novels of the midcentury, this is a distinctly American classic that deserves continued attention.… (més)

This is the first novel John Rechy published, based on his life as a hustler. Not one city--adventures take place in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and New Orleans--but the hustling scene of masculine hustlers, queens, scores and vice cops is similar in all these places. The protagonist is torn between the world of education, career and writing, which he has worked to gain admittance to, and the attractions of confirming his desirability in the simplest possible fashion: being paid for access to his body.… (més)