Early Praise:

From the Los Angeles Times Book Review:
"The writing is so lush, so present, so alive with a kind of pure faith...."

From Publisher's Weekly:
"...much to think about and to feel, including perhaps regret that he hasn't done more of the journalistic writing that, at its best, highlights his powers of observation."

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.

Table of Contents
Part I: 1958--1980
El Paso del Norte (1958)
The City of Lost Angeles (1959)
"Conduct Unbecoming...": Lieutenant on the Peace Line (1966)
The Army Fights an Idea (1970)
"All It Does Is Make You Hate" (1971)
The Sunshine Girl's Homophobic Pitch (1977)
Common Bonds and Battles (1978)
Masters and Johnson Focus on Homosexuality (1979)
A Case for Cruising (1979)
Part II: 1980--1990
Hollywood and Homosexuality: Heterosexual Films in Drag (1980)
Twenty Years of Gore Vidal: A Candidate for Canonization? (1980)
Burroughs Strikes Again (1981)
Memory Babe (1983)
AIDS: Mysteries and Hidden Dangers (1983)
The Dean from Dublin: A Truly Civilized Man (1984)
City of Night Remembered (1984)
Less Than Zero (1985)
A High Court Decision and a Sense of Betrayal (1986)
Carson McCuller's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1988)
Muscles and Mascara (1988)
Part III: 1990--2000
Sixty Years Later a Gay Classic Enters (Almost) the Mainstream (1990)
The Outlaw Sensibility (1991)
A Tough Guy From L.A. (1992)
Letter to Gore Vidal (1993)
Letter to the New York Review of Books (1996)
Sets and Reps (1997)
Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict (1999)
Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation (1999)
Brother Paul, Sister Jan, Brother Hinn, God, and the Folks (1999)
Part IV: 2000-2004
Lay of the Land: Christopher Isherwood's Lost Years (2000)
Randy Dandy: Liberace, American Boy (2001)
Holy Drag! (2001)
The Horror, the Horror: Thoughts on the Aftermath of September 11 (2001)
Beatin' Around the Bush (2002)
Sins of the Fathers (2002)
Cruise Not Gay! The Judge Has Spoken (2002)
Blonde (2002)
Lawrence Brings It All Back Home (2003)
From Sunset Boulevard to Mulholland Drive (2003)
A Star Is Killed (2003)
A Spirit Preserved in Amber (2003)
On Writing: The Terrible Three Rules (2004)
Our Friend the Comma (2004)
Fragments from a Literary Life (2004)
He Hugged Moms and Dads (2004)
    
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City of Night  Numbers | This Day's Death | The Vampires | The Fourth Angel | The Sexual Outlaw Rushes |
Bodies and Souls
| Marilyn's Daughter | The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez 
 Our Lady of Babylon | The Coming of the Night
The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens | Beneath the Skin
   
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