The Coming of the Night (Rechy, John) - Softcover

Rechy, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802137423 ISBN 13: 9780802137425

Publisher: Grove Press, 2000

Synopsis

John Rechy's new novel is a return to the themes and scenes of his classic, best-selling City of Night and a bittersweet memorial to a lost world -- gay Los Angeles in the moment before AIDS. It is 1981, a summer night, and an unscripted ritual is about to take place. Young, beautiful Jesse is celebrating one year on the dazzling gay scene and plans to lose himself completely in its transient pleasures. He is joined by Dave, a leatherman bent on testing limits. A young hustler, an opera lover lost in fantasies of youth, a gang of teenagers looking for trouble -- as the Santa Ana winds breathe fire down the hills of Los Angeles, stirring up desires and violence, these men circle ever closer to a confrontation as devastating as it is inevitable. Lyrical, humorous, and compassionate, The Coming of the Night proves again that as a novelist and chronicler of gay life John Rechy has no equal. "The question Rechy asks is still potent: Would you die for sex? Rechy's sizzling literary response, The Coming of Night is as exciting as it is chilling." -- Pamela Warrick, Los Angeles Times; "[Rechy] very nearly touches greatness . . . feeling his way toward that place within each of us where the ecstatic teeters on the edge of psychic abyss. . . . A substantial artist." -- Frank Browning, Salon.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

In a return to some of the themes of his first novel, the gay classic City of Night (1963), Rechy follows an ensemble cast of mainly gay characters over the course of one day in 1981 Los Angeles, just before the AIDS crisis hits. As the Santa Ana winds, said to provoke violence and desire, blow fire toward the city, the characters are introduced in short, interlaced sections. Beautiful Jesse, celebrating a year on the gay scene, plans to abandon himself to unlimited desire; Clint has fled troubling experiences in New York, where the first rumors of AIDS are surfacing; Dave, into leather and s&m, is looking for new and dangerous pleasures; Father Norris, a troubled priest, searches gay haunts for a young hustler named Angel, who supposedly has a tattoo of a naked Jesus on his back. Meanwhile, a trio of armed thugs is intent on gay bashing, and everyone moves inevitably toward a West Hollywood park, and tragedy. The gay characters are obsessed with sex, hustling, body building and cruising; sex scenes are plentiful, graphic in the extreme and certainly not for the squeamish. At the same time, Rechy doesn't skimp on plot, character or action, and the ingenious ending takes an unanticipated but thoroughly logical turn. In its gritty evocation of time and place, the novel goes beyond its narrow subject matter, reaching for a broader and deeper understanding of an era. (Aug.) FYI: Rechy recently received the William Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 10th annual Publishing Triangle Awards for gay literature.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Rechy's landmark 1963 novel, City of Night, broke new ground through its open portrayal of a sexually active homosexual underworld. His newest novel continues to document that life. Set in Los Angeles in 1981, The Coming of the Night follows a cast of colorful characters as they confront the dangers of being gay and passionate. Police harassment, gay-bashing, and public scorn and humiliation are ever-present dangers. And AIDS looms on the horizon, blowing into the lives of Rechy's characters like the Santa Ana winds that also figure into the narrative. Throughout, Rechy creates a stark, stinging, and anxious atmosphere in which desire makes people do awful things and lust commingles with promiscuity, obsession, self-hatred, depression, and narcissism. It's pretty raw stuff but a good read. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
-ARoger Durbin, Univ. of Akron
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0802137423
• ISBN 13: 9780802137425
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256