For a gay biography this should be so much better and more geared toward the average reader than trying to pick apart why Rechy wrote things. Nothing titillating about the many times Rechy is hustling in the streets or movie theaters. The worst part of the book is that for a very sexual subject this is deadly dull. Has the author not read Scott Thorson's book? But then Castillo ruins it by saying how wonderful Liberace is to ex-lovers and Rechy should have gone to bed with him. Funny to think that hustlers supposedly have standards. There are a few fun spots, most notably Rechy being unsuccessfully seduced by Liberace. All of this may work in a classroom setting, but as a home read it wanders and loses direction. Casillo is bent on pulling sections from Rechy's books and then explaining them, as well as paralleling Rechy's biography with his fictional characters. He is the author of The Marilyn Diaries, a novel about Marilyn Monroe.Ĭonfusing and surprisingly lame academic-style analysis of Rechy's life compared to his novels.

The work of John Rechy: Bodies and Souls, City of Night, Coming of the Night, The Fourth Angel, Marilyn’s Daughters, Numbers, Our Lady of Babylon, Rushes, The Sexual Outlaw, and The Vampires.Ĭharles Casillo is a Los Angeles–based freelance writer.

Working closely with Rechy himself as well as his family, friends, admirers, and colleagues, Casillo presents a complex portrait of a man who found sexual liberation through prostitution and used it to create a vivid and influential artistic legacy.

In this enlightening biography, Charles Casillo provides an absorbing picture of the outlaw writer, examining the dichotomy of Rechy’s life as both a respected author and professor and a tough-as-nails sex worker. Rechy continued to publish explosive novels, including Numbers, The Sexual Outlaw, and Rushes-even as he continued hustling seedy Hollywood Boulevard-and soon became an integral part of the new literary elite that included Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and Christopher Isherwood. For a street hustler to reach literary fame and widespread acclaim was unheard-of, especially if he was gay. Yet more shocking was Rechy’s revelation that the book was largely autobiographical. The unapologetically sexual story of a young gay hustler shocked readers with its frank treatment of a subject most knew about but chose to pretend did not exist. When John Rechy’s City of Night first appeared in 1963, it was greeted with equal parts fanfare and horror.

The Sexual Outlaw by John Rechy