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Title: City of Night by John Rechy ISBN: 0-8021-3083-6 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: March, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (45 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "Belongs on 100 Best Novels"
Comment: When the recent list of supposed "100 best novels" written in English during the 20th century appeared, I searched,in vain, for any novel written by a gay person that dealt with the gay experience. Not one. Certainly there was some kind of bigotry involved among the judges and the publishers of the list. There are a lot of great books written by gay writers, from before the 20th century, and certainly that has not changed. If any novel belonged on that list, it's Rechy's "City of Night," a sweeping epic about America. I re-read it recently, and was surprised to find that Rechy has included virtually every kind of character one would encounter in the world he depicts--and he brings them to memorable life, queens, hustlers, the woman who owns a gay bar--I'll never forget her, nor Chuck the cowboy, nor Miss Destiny, nor the narrator searching for himself. Yet the judges and publishers of the "100 best" seem to want to banish our writers from literature. Finally, of course, they can't.
Rating: 5
Summary: A great American novel
Comment: Whenever I see a list of 100 great books, I always look to see if there's a single book about being gay by an openly gay modern American writer, and there never is. I guess this is a kind of prejudice--because if ever a novel deserved to be in the high ranks of American literature, not just gay literature, it is "City of Night." Read as a novel about being gay, it's memorable--but it's equally impressive because of its beautiful literary form, the language, at times poetic, at times stark. The cast of characters is awesome--hustlers, drag queens, women in the fringes, cruisers of every kind. It's the kind of book you read and read again. I did, and it's even better each time. A real classic, and I read somewhere that there might be a movie. Wow!
Rating: 5
Summary: A great novel
Comment: Once you read Rechy's novel, you never forget it, no matter how many years ago you first read it. When you read it again, years later, it remains just as strong, maybe stronger because its "shock value"--about male hustlers and queens and bars and streets and movie balconies--is no longer the central point, and you can read for the beautiful language and the sharp characterizations that stay with you--like the queen Miss Destiny, unfogettable, and the once-beautiful boy, Chuck, and Pete and the narrator who can't connect even though they both want to. I won't forget Sylvia, either, who owns a gay bar in the New Orleans quarters, and we learn why, who she's been looking for all those years, why she harbors so many of the drifters who come into her bar. I could go on. I've read this book three times, and even more times I've returned to it, to read some sections over. A great book.
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Title: The Sexual Outlaw: A Documentary by John Rechy ISBN: 0802131638 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: January, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Coming of the Night by John Rechy ISBN: 0802137423 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 30 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Outlaw: John Rechy by Charles Casillo ISBN: 1555837344 Publisher: Alyson Pubns Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Rushes: A Novel by John Rechy ISBN: 0802134971 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: February, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Strapped for Cash: A History of American Hustler Culture by Mack Friedman ISBN: 155583731X Publisher: Alyson Pubns Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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