Buy Beneath the Skin: The Collected Essays of John Rechy

Beneath the Skin: The Collected Essays of John Rechy

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Synopsis

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.

Review

As an editor, Don Weise has become the go-to guy for venerable homosexualist authors (Vidal on sex, White’s arts and letters, a forthcoming collection from Albee). This wide-ranging, free-thinking collection of 45 perceptive essays, pungent reviews, knowing profiles, loving film commentaries, snatches of poignant family sketches, and several opinionated open letters, is a delectable addition to Rechy’s 13 previous books. A couple of the pieces – “On Writing: The Terrible Three Rules” and “Our Friend the Comma” (both from 2004) – have the aura of Rechy’s acclaimed writing class about them: his singular passion for the craft of writing is genuinely apparent. A couple more – “Lay of the Land: Christopher Isherwood's Lost Years” (2000) and “Randy Dandy: Liberace, American Boy” (2001) – are decidedly un-doctrinaire assessments of two very different gay icons. Several are deliciously, angrily political – in “He Hugged Moms and Dads” (2004), he shames George W. Bush for his rich-kid warmongering; “‘Conduct Unbecoming...’: Lieutenant on the Peace Line” (1966) and “The Army Fights an Idea” (1970) slam the Vietnam-era military. Some are decidedly, even defiantly, contrarian: for example, Rechy defends a movie many angry activists picketed, in “A Case for Cruising” (1979). Other pieces discuss his bodybuilding, deride the Catholic Church, and, most lovingly, describe the Los Angeles of yore – “The City of Lost Angeles” (1959). Rechy’s journalism has long been scattered over the years and among many magazines. Beneath the Skin collects much – but not nearly all – of it for the first time, with additional fresh commentary from the author; it’s a book for fans of Rechy’s lush, live writing.

-- Richard Labonte, Books to Watch Out For