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John Rechy

ジョン・フランシスコ・レチ

John Francisco Rechy

Aliases: Juan Francisco Flores Rechy / Juan Rechy

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1931-03-10 （El Paso, Texas, U.S.）
Nationality
United States
Languages
English, Spanish
Residence History
El Paso, Texas, U.S. → New York, U.S. → Los Angeles, California, U.S. → Southern California (long-term)

Career

Occupations
novelist, essayist, playwright, professor
Active Years
1963-2025
Affiliations
UCLA (teaching affiliation), University of Southern California, Master of Professional Writing Program (faculty)
Influenced By
Jean Genet, Jack Kerouac, Christopher Isherwood
Influenced
Michael Cunningham, Kate Braverman, Sandra Tsing Loh, Gina Nahai

Education

Texas Western College (now University of Texas at El Paso)
English
Degree: BA
Period: 1950s
Year of Graduation: 1953
Country: United States
Served as editor of the college newspaper.
Columbia University (graduate studies / writing classes)
Period: 1950年代
Country: United States
Attended creative writing classes; did not join Pearl S. Buck's class but studied under other instructors.

Awards

PEN Center USA - West Lifetime Achievement Award
1997
Organization: PEN Center USA (PEN-USA-West)
Result: 受賞
Bill Whitehead Award (Publishing Triangle)
1999
Organization: Publishing Triangle
Result: 受賞
NEA Fellowship
Organization: National Endowment for the Arts
Result: フェロー
ONE Magazine Culture Hero Award (first recipient)
2006
Organization: ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives
Result: 受賞
Los Angeles Review of Books / UCR Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award
2016
Organization: Los Angeles Review of Books / University of California, Riverside
Result: 受賞
Lambda Literary Award (Gay Fiction)
2018
Work: After the Blue Hour
Category: Gay Fiction
Organization: Lambda Literary
Result: 受賞
Robert Kirsch Award (lifetime achievement)
2018
Organization: Robert Kirsch Award (organization)
Result: 受賞
Lon Tinkle Lifetime Achievement Award (Texas Institute of Letters)
2020
Organization: Texas Institute of Letters
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

City of Night

1963 Novel (largely autobiographical)

A largely autobiographical novel about hustling and gay culture across cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans, depicting nighttime urban landscapes and the lives of outsiders.

urban lifesexual outsidersgay culturealienation

The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez

1991 Novel (Mexican-American literature)

A novel rooted in Mexican-American social and family contexts; has been taught in Chicano studies courses.

Mexican-American identityfamilyreligion and miracles

After the Blue Hour

2017 Novel

A late-career novel that explores relationships, memory, loss, and renewal.

memorylossrenewal

Bibliography

  • City of Night — 1963
  • Numbers — 1967
  • This Day's Death — 1969
  • The Vampires — 1971
  • The Fourth Angel — 1972
  • Rushes — 1979
  • The Sexual Outlaw — 1977 (non-fiction)
  • Bodies and Souls — 1983
  • Marilyn's Daughter — 1988
  • The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez — 1991
  • Our Lady of Babylon — 1996
  • The Coming of the Night — 1999
  • The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens — 2003
  • Beneath the Skin — 2004 (essays)
  • About My Life and the Kept Woman — 2008 (memoir)
  • After the Blue Hour — 2017
  • Pablo! — 2018

Adaptations

  • Mysteries and Desire: Searching the Worlds of John Rechy (CD-ROM produced by the Annenberg Center of Communications)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Carefully chosen diction and attention to sentence lengthSometimes poetic yet direct prose
Recurring Motifs
nighttime urban landscapesoutsiders (hustlers, transgender people, drag queens)immigrant / Mexican-American themesloneliness and desire

Health

  • drug use
    1970年代–1980年代
    Affected his personal life and sometimes his writing during the 1970s–1980s; details limited in public records.

Legacy

John Rechy is a pioneering figure in Mexican-American literature and gay literature, influential for his portrayals of urban life and marginalized people. His long career has been recognized with multiple lifetime achievement awards and literary honors.

Museums

  • The Wittliff Collection (Texas State University) San Marcos, Texas (Texas State University) Opened in 2019

Academic Societies

  • Texas Institute of Letters
  • Publishing Triangle

Archives

  • The Wittliff Collection acquired Rechy's complete archive in 2019

In Popular Culture

  • David Hockney's painting 'Building, Pershing Square, Los Angeles' was inspired by a passage in City of Night.
  • The English synth-pop duo Soft Cell's song 'Numbers' was inspired by Rechy's 1967 novel 'Numbers'.
  • Artists such as David Bowie, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Tom Waits have acknowledged Rechy's influence.

Quotes

  • "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."
    Source: Interview / article (cited in various profiles and interviews) (2017)

Trivia

  • City of Night (1963) became an international best-seller and has also frequently appeared on lists of banned books in the U.S.
  • Worked as a hustler into his forties while also teaching by day; these experiences informed his writing.
  • Birth name: Juan Francisco Flores Rechy.
  • Was involved in the 1959 Cooper Do-nuts Riot, an event later reflected in City of Night.