City of Night - John Rech

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.

From the Inside FlapWhen 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