Rechy John - Henry Kinsey

Numbers

May 19th, 2010 | Author: irioqec

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Numbers Such Is Life – So. Calif book reader – Los Angeles, CA USA
This book is true if you’ll read Rechy’s autobiography recently out. And this is the way that many gay men led their lives. Many still do probably. And Rechy is still alive to write and tell about it. Of course he was passive. I wondered if he ever got any venereal diseases then. He doesn’t say. I suppose many people would be disgusted by this book, but I’ve read other books that are disgusting. Seems anything gets printed these days. I don’t know if it has any socially redeeming value but was an interesting book to read.
An Important Literary Work That’s Incredibly Sexy As Well! – Owen Keehnen – Chicago
Written in 1967, John Rechy’s NUMBERS is a significant contribution to gay literature not only because of it’s pre-Stonewall publication, but also because the book goes a great distance in helping to chronicle some of the virtually underground gay sexual mores, play, and attitudes of LA in the 1960s…and it does so very entertainingly and with lots & lots of sex.

Johnny Rio, a former superstud star hustler on the Strip, returns to LA on a vacation from his mundane “working” world in Texas. In no time it becomes clear to the reader that “hotter than ever” Johnny is returning to get a little taste of what he has missed leading his 9-5 “straight” existence. Specifically he returns to reclaim the buzz that comes from being desired, especially by other men. Though claiming to be straight and obsessed with defining himself as such, Johnny needs this male affirmation – it is his power, his food, the confirmation of his worth. The book follows Johnny on his hot & smutty adventures accruing the “numbers” in the title which refer to the number of men who’ve given their power over to him as a result of his desirability. NUMBERS is a raunchy read – so prudes beware…but this book is also a lot more – a fine rumination on sexual need, sexual definition, vulnerability, and how so much in our sexual nature often reveals something deeper.

NUMBERS is not Rechy’s best book (personally I still think his greatest contribution to gay literature is City of Night) but it is an extremely worthwhile read…and just to keep you turning the pages – it’s HOT, smokin’ hot. You’ve gotta love that sexy/smart combo – at least I did.
A Less Interesting Re-Statement of City of Night – Gary F. Taylor – Biloxi, MS USA
John Rechy’s 1963 CITY OF NIGHT was a shocker in its day, an episodic collage of metro-area male prostitution, sex, and self-destruction written in a style that echoed Jack Kerouac’s beat literature. Although dated by slang, changing mores, and the AIDS epidemic, it still bears reading today as a portrait of gay street life in the pre-Stonewall era. NUMBERS, Rechy’s second novel, is quite another matter.

NUMBERS is essentially CITY OF NIGHT repeated, but without the “shock of the new,” with less style, and with considerably less interest. The extremely episodic story concerns Johnny Rio, a Los Angeles street hustler who several years earlier overdosed on the lifestyle and escaped to a solitary life in Arizona; now he’s back “for just ten days” and, not unexpectedly, finds himself drawn back into the malestrom.

There’s nothing here that Rechy hasn’t said elsewhere and often quite a bit better, and NUMBERS feels much less a novel than a series of strung-together sexual fantasies lacking significant point. In this instance, the result is less interesting than annoying; readers interested in Rechy’s work should pick up a copy of CITY OF NIGHT, his first and finest work, instead.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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Book jacket/back: Johnny Rio, a handsome narcissist but no longer a pretty boy, travels to Los Angeles, the site of past sexual conquest and remembered youthful radiance, in a frenzied attempt to recreate his younger self. Johnny has ten precious days to draw the “numbers,” the men who will confirm his desirability, and with the hungry focus of a man on borrowed time, he stalks the dark balconies of all-night theaters, the hot sands of gay beaches, and shady glens of city parks, attempting to attract shadowy sex-hunters in an obcessive battle against the passing of his youth.

Numbers

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Beneath the Skin: The Collected Essays

May 10th, 2010 | Author: irioqec

Beneath the Skin: The Collected Essays Superb – A reviewer – Boston, MA
This is a terrific collection of essays that offer tremendous insights into a wide range of topics, all of which are analyzed and evaluated in masterful prose, full of wit and sagacity. Subjects include Tom Cruise, Marilyn Monroe, Liberace, homophobia, 9/11, Gore Vidal, Joyce Carol Oates, racism, literary critics, William Friedkin, and Paul Schrader. One can’t help walk away from this book feeling great admiration for Rechy’s studied convictions, his honesty, and his immense talents as a writer, social historian, and activist.
: When John Rechy broke out in 1963 as the bestselling author of City of Night, his novel about the underworld of gay male prostitution, he became a source for provocative commentary on sex, homosexuality, and culturally transgressive literature for publications as varied as the New York Times, The Nation, the Advocate, and Forum. Beneath the Skin collects more than four decades of the author’s outspoken essays—many never before reprinted and almost none ever appearing previously in book form. Rechy holds forth on topics ranging from the birth of the sexual liberation movement, the rise of Anita Bryant, and the emergence of AIDS to sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and last year’s repeal of sodomy laws. Beneath the Skin also includes pieces on gay and lesbian authors such as Gore Vidal, Jack Kerouac, Christopher Isherwood, Carson McCullers, and Elizabeth Bowen, and non-gay figures like Philip Roth, William T. Vollman, and Joyce Carol Oates, as well as essays on Madonna, Tom Cruise, Eminem, Liberace, Marilyn Monroe, and the gay silent film star Ramon Novarro.
Beneath the Skin: The Collected Essays

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Numbers

Beneath the Skin: The Collected Essays