Top Highlights

• John Rechy—El Paso, Texas-born novelist, essayist, memoirist, dramatist, and literary critic of Mexican and Scottish descent—published his debut novel City of Night in 1963.
• His work has had wide cultural impact, especially on other artists—
• A number of scholars (myself included) within or working across these categories have written chapters, chapter sections, and/or articles on various aspects of his work, among them Frederick Luis Aldama, Juan Bruce-Novoa, Debra Castillo, David William Foster, Carl Gutiérrez-Jones, Ricardo Ortíz, Rafael Pérez-Torres, and José David Saldívar.
• However, despite these recognitions, Rechy’s legendary persona as an outspoken gay man who writes about himself as a “sexual outlaw,” a rough-trade hustler, and a bodybuilder has continued to overshadow the depth, complexity, variety, and sheer artistry of his works.
• This volume gives the general reader and the scholar alike a comprehensive introduction to Rechy’s oeuvre and simultaneously makes connections between Rechy’s odyssey and identity quests; his representations of identity and identification; his true fictions; his critique of the dominant values of U.S. culture; his multisensory, boundary-blurring ge...