John Rechy

{{Infobox writer

| name = John Rechy

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| birth_name = John Francisco Rechy

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1931|3|10|mf=y}}

| birth_place = El Paso, Texas, U.S.

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| occupation = Novelist, essayist

| alma_mater = Texas Western College

| period = 1963–present

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| notableworks =City of Night
The Sexual Outlaw
The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez

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| website = {{URL|http://johnrechy.com}}

| module = {{Infobox military person | embed=yes

| allegiance = United States

| branch = {{army|United States}}

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| rank = Private

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John Francisco Rechy (born March 10, 1931) is a Mexican-American novelist and essayist.The Aztlan Mexican Studies Reader 1974-2016 (2018 Chicano studies text book) by Hector Calderon, founding Chair of the Cesar E. Chavez Dept of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA. Page 20.https://www.amazon.com/Aztlan-Mexican-Studies-Reader-1974-2016/dp/089551169X His novels are written extensively about gay culture in Los Angeles and wider America, among other subject matter. City of Night, his debut novel published in 1963, was a best seller. Drawing on his own background, he has contributed to Mexican-American literature, notably with his novel The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, which has been taught in several Chicano studies courses throughout the United States. But, even after the success of his first novel, he still worked as a prostitute, teaching during the day, and hustling at night. He worked as a prostitute into his forties while also teaching at UCLA. Through the 1970s and 1980s he dealt with personal drug use, as well as the AIDS crisis, which killed many of his friends.{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Rupert |date=April 27, 2008 |title=Midnight Cowboy: John Rechy recalls 40 years of Hustle |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/midnight-cowboy-john-rechy-recalls-40-yeas-of-hustle-815124.html |access-date=February 21, 2023 |website=Independent}}

Early life

Rechy was born Juan Francisco Flores RechyThe Aztlan Mexican Studies Reader 1974-2016 by Hector Calderon https://www.amazon.com/Aztlan-Mexican-Studies-Reader-1974-2016/dp/089551169X March 10, 1931, in El Paso, Texas.{{cite web|url=http://files.usgwarchives.net/tx/elpaso/vitals/births/1931/elpnrb31.txt |title=EL PASO COUNTY, TEXAS - BIRTHS 1931, N-R |publisher=USGenWeb Archives |access-date=April 18, 2014 }} NOTE: Although many literary encyclopedias and biographies published in the 1960s through the 1990s list Rechy's year of birth as 1934, most such publications released since that period list the birth year as 1931. The latter is consistent with the year stated in the official Texas birth records, and [http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews41_28/page21.cfm Rechy himself has acknowledged 1931 as his birth year] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416175515/http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews41_28/page21.cfm |date=April 16, 2014 }}.{{cite magazine | url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/apr/03/the-making-of-john-rechy/?pagination=false | title=The Making of John Rechy | magazine=The New York Review of Books | date=April 3, 2008 | access-date=April 18, 2014 | author=White, Edmund}}{{cite web|url=http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews41_28/page21.cfm |title=John Rechy: From bedsheets to printed sheets |work=Seattle Gay News |date=July 12, 2013 |access-date=April 18, 2014 |author=Andrews-Katz, Eric |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416175515/http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews41_28/page21.cfm |archive-date=April 16, 2014 }} He was the youngest of five children born to Guadalupe (née Flores) and Roberto Sixto Rechy.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TIlaa0cLu2AC&q=%22john+rechy%22&pg=PA192 | title=Latino Writers and Journalists: A to Z of Latino Americans | publisher=Infobase Publishing | author=Wood, Jamie Martinez | year=2007 | pages=192–93 | isbn=9781438107851}} Both of Rechy's parents were natives of Mexico; his father was of Scottish lineage.{{cite book | title=Contemporary Authors. New Revision Series. Volume 6 | publisher=Gale Research Company | year=1982 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/contemporaryauth0000cont/page/408 408–412] | isbn=0-8103-1935-7 }}{{cite book | title=Contemporary Authors. Autobiography Series. Volume 4. | publisher=Gale Research Company | year=1986 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/contemporaryauth04adel/page/253 253–266] | isbn=0-8103-4503-X | url=https://archive.org/details/contemporaryauth04adel/page/253 }}

He earned a B.A. in English from Texas Western College (now University of Texas at El Paso), where he served as editor of the college newspaper.

Following graduation from college, Rechy enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was granted early release from the Army to enroll as a graduate student at Columbia University.{{cite book | title=Contemporary Authors. New Revision Series. Volume 188 | publisher=Gale Research Company | year=2009 | pages=352–357 | isbn=978-1-4144-5669-0}} He applied for admission to a creative writing class taught by novelist Pearl S. Buck by submitting an unpublished draft of a novel he had written titled Pablo!{{cite web | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-09-07-vw-1509-story.html | title=Taming of the Sexual Outlaw : 25 Years After 'City of Night,' John Rechy Searches for a New Recognition With a Novel About Monroe | work=Los Angeles Times | date=September 7, 1988 | access-date=March 31, 2014| author=Barrios, Gregg}} While his application to Buck's class was not accepted, Rechy was admitted into the writing classes of Hiram Haydn, a senior editor at Random House, at the New School for Social Research.

The Cooper Do-nuts Riot happened in 1959 in Los Angeles, when the lesbians, gay men, transgender people, and drag queens who hung out at Cooper Do-nuts and who were frequently harassed by the LAPD fought back after police arrested three people, including Rechy. Patrons began pelting the police with donuts and coffee cups. The LAPD called for back-up and arrested a number of rioters. Rechy and the other two original detainees were able to escape.Faderman, Lillian and Stuart Timmons (2006). Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians. Basic Books. pp. 1–2. {{ISBN|0-465-02288-X}} He later wrote about it in City of Night.

Literary career

Rechy is considered one of Mexican American Literature's founding authors, and based his early writings on Mexican values and cultural problems that were available to him in Mexican films.The Aztlan Mexican Studies Reader 1974-2016 (2018 Chicano studies text book) by Hector Calderon, founding Chair of the Cesar E. Chavez Dept of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA. Quote on page 20.https://www.amazon.com/Aztlan-Mexican-Studies-Reader-1974-2016/dp/089551169X Though he is probably the best-known gay male Latino writer in the United States, his gay-themed work reflects little of his Mexican-American heritage, except for the surnames of some of his characters.{{Cite book |last=Hogan |first=Steve |title=Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia |publisher=Henry Holt and Company, Inc. |year=1998 |isbn=0-8050-6031-6 |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=472 |language=}}

While Rechy was working on his first novel, installments began to appear in 1958 in literary magazines such as Evergreen Review, Big Table, Nugget, and The London Magazine. These excerpts were fictitious recreations of his life working as a hustler in New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans and appeared alongside writers like Christopher Isherwood, Jack Kerouac and Jean Genet.Outlaw: The Lives and Careers of John Rechy Advocate Books 2002 https://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-Rechy-Advocate-Books-Story/dp/1555837344 The largely autobiographical novel City of Night, debuted in October 1963. Despite the predominantly negative reviews the book received at the time of its publication, City of Night became an international bestseller.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4R0B0rSKmxUC&q=john+rechy&pg=PA34 | title=A Companion to Twentieth-Century United States Fiction | publisher=John Wiley & Sons | author=Seed, David | year=2010 | pages= 155–56 | isbn=9781444310115}}{{cite web | url=http://www.sfweekly.com/2000-04-05/news/the-romantic-egotist/full/ | title=The Romantic Egotist | work=SF Weekly | date=April 5, 2000 | access-date=March 31, 2014 | author=Timberg, Scott | archive-date=April 7, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407054813/http://www.sfweekly.com/2000-04-05/news/the-romantic-egotist/full/ | url-status=dead }} Alternately, it is also often included on lists of the most banned books in America.{{Cite web |last=Espinoza |first=Alex |date=October 19, 2019 |title=John Rechy: A Prophet of Liberation |url=https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-john-rechy-20181019-story.html |website=The LA Times}} Rechy told critic Ronald Martinetti of American Legends website that had the novel been made into a movie, the actor he wanted to play the "main character" was "Young Monty Clift. I liked him very much. I had seen Red River. He was a tremendous actor. So sad."{{Cite web |title=John Rechy: "City of Lost Angels" |url=https://americanlegends.com/authors/john-rechy-city-of-lost-angels.html |access-date=June 8, 2025 |website=americanlegends.com}}

In addition to the dozen novels he has written to date, Rechy has contributed numerous essays and literary reviews to various publications including The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, The Village Voice, The New York Times, Evergreen Review and Saturday Review. Many of these writings were anthologized in his 2004 publication Beneath the Skin.

He has written three plays, Tigers Wild (first performed as The Fourth Angel and based on Rechy's novel of that title), Rushes (based on his novel of the same title), and Momma as She Became—Not as She Was, a one-act play.

Rechy was cited by journalist Amy Harmon in a 2004 New York Times article that reported about a computer glitch on Amazon.com that suddenly revealed the identities of thousands of people who had anonymously posted book reviews. It was revealed that Rechy, among several other authors, had "pseudonymously written themselves five-star reviews, Amazon's highest rating". Amazon stopped accepting anonymous reviews as a result of this finding.Harmon, Amy [https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/14/us/amazon-glitch-unmasks-war-of-reviewers.html "Amazon Glitch Unmasks War of Reviewers"], The New York Times, February 14, 2004. Retrieved March 31, 2014.

In 2021 Rechy was at work on a new novel entitled Beautiful People at the End of the Line, inspired by "comic books and celebrity culture."{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

Rechy says of his work, "An early admirer of my work labeled me 'an accidental writer' — the kind who writes randomly, off the top of his head, the way Kerouac is reputed to have done. But that's not true of me. I'm a very conscious writer, attentive to the right word, even the lengths of sentences, and punctuation for effect."{{Cite web |last=Fassler |first=Joe |date=February 7, 2017 |title=The Key to Writing a Mystery is Asking the Perfect Question |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/the-key-to-writing-a-mystery-is-asking-the-perfect-question/515799/ |access-date=February 2, 2023 |website=The Atlantic}}

Awards, honors and recognition

Rechy is the first novelist to receive PEN-USA-West's Lifetime Achievement Award (1997); he is the recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle (1999){{cite web|title=Awards|url=http://www.publishingtriangle.org/awards.asp#Bill|work=PublishingTriangle.org|access-date=June 8, 2011}}{{cite web | url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/22217837.html?dids=22217837:22217837&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Oct+26%2C+1997&author=PAMELA+WARRICK&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Credit+Where+It%27s+Overdue%3B+His+writing+began+with+controversy.+Now+John+Rechy%27s+life+work+is+saluted.&pqatl=google | archive-url=https://archive.today/20140331222845/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/22217837.html?dids=22217837:22217837&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Oct+26,+1997&author=PAMELA+WARRICK&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Credit+Where+It's+Overdue;+His+writing+began+with+controversy.+Now+John+Rechy's+life+work+is+saluted.&pqatl=google | url-status=dead | archive-date=March 31, 2014 | title=Credit Where It's Overdue; His writing began with controversy. Now John Rechy's life work is saluted | work=Los Angeles Times | date=October 26, 1997 | access-date=March 31, 2014 | author=Warrick, Pamela }} and an NEA fellow. He is a faculty member at the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. He is the first recipient of ONE Magazine Culture Hero Award.{{cite web|title=Culture Hero Award 2006—John Rechy|url=https://www.myspace.com/onearchives/photos/albums/album/868848|publisher=ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives|access-date=June 8, 2011}}{{Primary source inline|date=February 2024}}

In 2016, he won the first annual Los Angeles Review of Books/UCR Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award.{{Cite web|url=https://creativewriting.ucr.edu/contests-awards|title = Contests & Awards}}

At the 30th Lambda Literary Awards in 2018, he won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction for After the Blue Hour.[http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Lambda-Literary-Awards-honor-Carmen-Maria-Machado-John-Rechy-Keeanga-Yamahtta-Taylor/63080.html "Lambda Literary awardees include Carmen Maria Machado, John Rechy, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191016010443/http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Lambda-Literary-Awards-honor-Carmen-Maria-Machado-John-Rechy-Keeanga-Yamahtta-Taylor/63080.html |date=October 16, 2019 }}. Windy City Times, June 5, 2018.

In 2018, Rechy was also awarded with the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement noting that he is "a major figure in Mexican, LGBTQ and Los Angeles literary communities."{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}

In 2020 The Texas Institute of Letters honored Rechy with its Lon Tinkle Lifetime Achievement Award. TIL President Carmen Tafolla called Rechy's work "a significant turning point in modern American literature, and a prose so poetically crafted it sharpens our perception of both the beauty and the ache of the human experience."{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}

Legacy

Writers Michael Cunningham,{{cite web | url=http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/17/entertainment/ca-rechy17/2 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140419012000/http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/17/entertainment/ca-rechy17/2 | url-status=dead | archive-date=April 19, 2014 | title=John Rechy's intensified reality | work=Los Angeles Times | date=February 17, 2008 | access-date=April 18, 2014 | author=Nelson, Steffie}} Kate Braverman, Sandra Tsing Loh, and Gina Nahai were students of Rechy's creative writing classes before becoming published authors.

Rechy's contributions to women-centered narratives and the Chicana feminist canon are reflected in many of his works. Maria DeGuzman argues in her book, Understanding John Rechy, that "his decolonial Chicana feminist representations of women indicate the fact that he has long understood the relationship that exists between misogyny and homophobia (against gay men as well as against LGBTQ+ more generally). The oppression of women and trans women (for example, "Troja" in Marilyn's Daughter) is not just about Latinx communities; it is, in Rechy's work, also about the larger U.S. culture."{{Cite web |date=September 2, 2020 |title=Interview with Maria DeGuzman, Author of Understanding John Rechy |url=https://latinxtalk.org/2020/09/02/interview-with-maria-deguzman-author-of-understanding-john-rechy-university-of-south-carolina-press-2019/ |access-date=February 21, 2023 |website=LATINX TALK}}

English pop artist David Hockney's painting Building, Pershing Square, Los Angeles was inspired by a passage in City of Night.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cvjK_9445wsC&q=john+rechy+david+hockney&pg=PA119 | title=Rebels in Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s | publisher=Macmillan | author=Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter | year=2011 | pages=119 | isbn=9781429958998}}

The 1983 song "Numbers" by the English synth-pop duo Soft Cell was inspired by Rechy's 1967 novel of the same title.{{cite web | url=http://www.polarimagazine.com/lgbt-history-month/numbers-soft-cell/ | title=Featured Song – Day 27 | work=Polari Magazine | date=February 27, 2012 | access-date=July 31, 2014}}

A CD-ROM of Rechy's life and work was produced by the Annenberg Center of Communications and is titled Mysteries and Desire: Searching the Worlds of John Rechy.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3uD6PKXl3q4C&q=%22john+rechy%22&pg=PA669 | title=Encyclopedia of Latino popular culture. 2. M - Z | publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |author1=Candelaria, Cordelia Chávez |author-link1=Cordelia Candelaria |author2=Garcâia, Peter J. |author3=Aldama, Arturo J. | year=2004 | pages=667–69 | isbn=9780313332111}}

In 2019 the Wittliff Collection at Texas State University acquired Rechy's complete archive stating, "This treasure trove of letters serves as a virtual diary of one of the most significant periods in Rechy's personal and literary life"{{Cite web |date=July 3, 2024 |title=The Wittliff Acquires Papers of John Rechy, Pioneer of American, LGBT and Chicano Literature. |url=https://www.thewittliffcollections.txst.edu/about/news/Rechy-Acquisition.html |access-date=March 17, 2025 |website=thewittliffcollections.txst.edu |language=en}}

Other artists who have acknowledged Rechy's influence include David Bowie,{{Cite web |title=In Memoriam: David Bowie's Top 100 Favorite Books |url=https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/01/11/david-bowies-top-100-books |access-date=March 28, 2022 |website=The New York Public Library |language=en}} Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan and Tom Waits.

Bibliography

=Novels=

City of Night (Grove Press, 1963)
Numbers (Grove Press, 1967)
This Day's Death (Grove Press, 1969)
The Vampires (Grove Press, 1971)
The Fourth Angel (Viking, 1972)
Rushes (Grove Press, 1979)
Bodies and Souls (Carroll & Graf, 1983)
Marilyn's Daughter (Carroll & Graf, 1988)
The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez (Arcade, 1991)
Our Lady of Babylon (Arcade, 1996)
The Coming of the Night (Grove Press, 1999)
The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens (Grove Press, 2003){{cite news |last=Hall |first=J. S.|title=Rechy's big adventure |url=http://washingtonblade.com:80/2003/12-26/arts/books/books.cfm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040103065320/http://washingtonblade.com:80/2003/12-26/arts/books/books.cfm |archive-date=January 3, 2004|work=Washington Blade |date=December 26, 2003}}
After the Blue Hour (Grove Press, 2017)
Pablo! (Arte Público Press, 2018)

=Non-fiction=

The Sexual Outlaw (Grove Press, 1977)
Beneath the Skin (Carroll & Graf, 2004)
About My Life and the Kept Woman (Grove Press, 2008) (memoir)

References

External links

[http://www.johnrechy.com JohnRechy.com], official website
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqxLdl_TDww "UCLA Professor Héctor Calderón in Conversation with Author John Rechy, May 14, 2013"], videotape by UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
{{cite web|url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/rechy_j.html |title=Rechy, John (b. 1934) |first=Gregory W. |last=Bredbeck |publisher=glbtq.com |access-date=February 6, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206200254/http://www.glbtq.com/literature/rechy_j.html |archive-date=February 6, 2015 }}
{{cite web|url=http://www.glbtq.com/blogs/john_rechys_city_of_night_at_.html |title=John Rechy's City of Night at 50 |first=Claude J. |last=Summers |publisher=glbtq.com |date=October 25, 2013 |access-date=February 6, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206190742/http://www.glbtq.com/blogs/john_rechys_city_of_night_at_.html |archive-date=February 6, 2015 }}

Category:1931 births

Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century American essayists

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:21st-century American essayists

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:21st-century American novelists

Category:American gay writers

Category:American LGBTQ academics

Category:American LGBTQ dramatists and playwrights

Category:American LGBTQ novelists