So how does this unappreciative punk respond when asked if he ever knew or studied with John Rechy? Without hesitation: "I don't think I've ever had a teacher who taught me as much before or since." Cunningham goes on and on, talking about Rechy's courtly teaching style, his skill at creating a healthy atmosphere for criticism in the class, and calling him "hugely intelligent, hugely respectful." In other words, he does anything but dodge his associations with the novelist.
When told about Rechy's words for him, Cunningham sounds partly confused, partly hurt, wondering where he might have failed to give credit where it's due. But what about that other matter -- burying your L.A. roots? Why is that early book about California, Golden States, out of print? The reason, Cunningham says, is simple: It's just not very good.
Rechy, about 1 year old.
Tim Courney
Rechy, about 1 year old.
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But he asks, even after hearing about Rechy's frustration with him, "If you speak to John, please give him my love."
There's a curious contradiction to Rechy. He's a man of almost electric intelligence who can discuss Joyce and Stein, Bergman and Buñuel, and serves as literary godfather to some of the nation's best young writers. At the same time, he sometimes produces flat, cartoonish characters and writes interminable descriptions of their physical appearances and workout routines. These are, for example, some of the first lines from The Coming of the Night: "Jesse -- the kid -- woke with one thought in his mind. Today he would do something wild to celebrate one glorious year of being gay -- and it was great to be gay and young and good-looking and hot. Of course, his designation of 'one year' was not exact. He had been gay from the time he became aware of sex...." Rechy talks about revising his books -- even the spontaneous City of Night -- more than a dozen times, but some of his writing seems dashed off. And his reputation outside the gay world is still unsteady: Rechy concedes he loses readers, gay and straight, when he departs from gay themes, as he has with books like Our Lady of Babylon, a novel about wanton women through the ages, and Marilyn's Daughter, the imaginary chronicle of Marilyn Monroe's forgotten child. He feels he's been typecast.
Rechy remains a hero to gay men but has publicly denounced the category of gay writer. "I resent the labels. I'm a writer. And for a long time I was a gay writer. And I wasn't a Chicano writer, because goddamnit, you can't be gay and Chicano. No, really, those discussions were held by a gentleman at UCLA. Then I was a Los Angeles writer. Jesus Christ, I'm a writer and one of the best for God's sake, so I hate the characterizations because they limit the art. That's why I resent it -- the ghettoization of literature." He's simply not a joiner. He thrives on exile, exiled even from his own subcultures.
Cunningham, the prodigal son, thinks Rechy's reputation has suffered because gay literature has become its own world away from the mainstream. "I think John is one of the casualties of the ghettoization of gay literature," he says. "I think history, the final arbiter, will vindicate John's work." Its best quality, he says, is its vitality. "Which is part of what turns people off -- it's just so juicy and alive and sensual. The work makes people too nervous. There's a long, long history of work that made people uncomfortable, that 50 years later became part of the canon," he says, referring to D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller.
The novelist sees himself the same way -- as someone too dangerous for the mainstream. Rechy is nothing if not competitive -- he struck up a rivalry with one of his own characters, trying to outscore the young stud in Numbers -- and he speaks sometimes as if Rechy the writer were in competition with Rechy the sex icon. Oscar Wilde once said that he poured his talent into his work, but his genius into his life. Rechy would never say the same thing about himself. Part of what makes the John Rechy CD-ROM -- which includes interviews, live-action footage, old letters, even the "Fruit Salad" review -- so interesting is that it gives his family, his physical style, and his literary battles equal weight with his writing.
"I don't mind saying this: I know what's what," he says. "I'm one of the best of our time, best of my generation. I certainly rank with Norman Mailer. I certainly outshine Philip Roth." Same with Gore Vidal. "I know I rank with them, and that's my rightful place. And not as a gay writer, not as an ex-hustler, not as a sexual outlaw."
When assessed simply as a novelist, though, Rechy's work leaves something to be desired. Some of his books since City of Night are strong, some aren't; even that first book has deep flaws alongside its brilliant energy and lyricism. Writers since Whitman have spoken of the need for raw, lived experience -- all kinds of it -- to power good writing. Rechy has taken this manifesto further than almost any living writer -- perhaps too far. While he's certainly been a writer first, his greatest creations are not his novels but his rich personality and his wildly varied, vulnerable, and defiant life itself. If living well is the best revenge, Rechy should be a happy man indeed. At home, with Garbo and Crawford, 1978.Rechy in Los Feliz, early '70s.Original jacket photo for City of Night, 1963.David Hockney's 1964 painting Building, Pershing Square, Los Angeles was inspired by City of Night, Rechy's 1963 debut novel.
