John Rechy

John Francisco Rechy (born March 10, 1931) is an American novelist, essayist, memoirist, dramatist and literary critic.

Quotes

• I celebrate that figure as an “outlaw.” That’s someone who lives in defiance of oppressive laws, and, in doing so, thrives against those strictures.
  • On how he views a wandering figure being used in literature in “Technicolor Saints and Celebrated Outlaws: An Interview with John Rechy” in Los Angeles Review of Books (2018 Sep 2)

• I was bewildered. I did nothing at all to promote the book, even to the extent of denying that I wrote it. I felt that if I left the streets as soon as I had some success, I'd be betraying the world that I wrote about. And the truth is that I couldn't give it up. I'd been hustling for so long that it was a habit.
  • On the success of his first novel City of Night in “Midnight cowboy: John Rechy recalls 40 years of hustle” in Independent (2008 Apr 7)

• Every character in City of Night has a strong antecedent…Miss Destiny was very real. That was the name she used, and all those stories were based on my recollections of her. We kept in touch for a few years after the book came out; she'd ring me in the middle of the night, saying she was with one of her 'husbands' who didn't believe she could be a character in a famous novel. Then some boozy voice would come on, and I'd have to say 'Yes, that really is the fabulous Miss Destiny'. After a few years the calls stopped, so I guess Miss Destiny is now rattling her beads in God's face, like she always said she would.
  • On the characters that populate his first novel City of Night in “Midnight cowboy: John Rechy recalls 40 years of hustle” in Independent (2008 Apr 7)

• You have to understand what the world was like back then. Being queer was very dangerous, and there was a lot of stigma about it. Even when I was hustling, it took me a long time to realise myself as a gay man. It's hard to accept that some of us, at one time or another, had heterosexual feelings. I certainly did. I emerged very slowly into homosexuality, despite the way I was living.
  • On the evolution of his sexuality in “Midnight cowboy: John Rechy recalls 40 years of hustle” in Independent (2008 Apr 7)

• It’s been more difficult for me to come out as a Mexican-American than come out as gay.
  • On his ethnicity in “A First Gay Novel, a Poor Latino Boyhood and the Confluence” in The New York Times (2013 Nov 30)

• …Pershing Square was a gathering of denizens of every type, the gospel people would preach, hustlers would hustle, queens would camp. It was an incredible array of society. There was a cop there that ruled it, I mean as if he was the king. And he was a terror. And if he saw anybody there whom he had not seen, you went downstairs to a little place that was kind of secret. It was very, very weird downstairs, a little room where he would interview you without saying that he suspected you of anything. If it looked like you were hustling or the queens or whatever he would go there and hassle you.
  • On his initial experiences as a gay man in Los Angeles in “Legendary Author John Rechy Recalls L.A.’s Oft-Forgotten Gay Uprising” in Los Angeles Magazine (2019 Jun 26)

• I cannot tell you what it does to me to hear pre-Stonewall. And even in our literature, even in the art, pre-Stonewall, post-Stonewall. I wrote three books pre-Stonewall and a dozen more post-Stonewall. There’s no demarcation. Gay history is centuries and centuries from the Romans to the Greeks to Oscar Wilde to all kinds of outrages. And those seem to be put back and pre-Stonewall is passive. Post-Stonewall is brave and dignified. I actually have heard things like that…
  • On his frustration of the Stonewall event being used to divide gay history in “Legendary Author John Rechy Recalls L.A.’s Oft-Forgotten Gay Uprising” in Los Angeles Magazine (2019 Jun 26)

• We confuse gay liberation with straight imitation. Straightness is our goal. This pushes us away from the uniqueness that is the gay experience.
  • On how he views the current state of gay liberation in “John Rechy, a prophet of liberation” in Los Angeles Times (2018 Oct 19)

Quotes about

• John Rechy taught me everything. He taught me the importance of structure and the importance of clarity. I see that in my own students as well, you know, confusing mystery with vagueness. He taught me the difference.
  • Gina B. Nahai Interview (2015)