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its debut, John Rechy's City of Night created a sensation and became an international
bestseller. In The Coming of the Night, Rechy returns to some of the themes and scenes of
his now-classic first novel. A stunning evocation of gay desire in the moment just before
AIDS, this book confirms the author's position as America's pre-eminent gay writer. It is 1981, a summer night, and an
unscripted ritual is about to take place. Jesse, the "kid," is celebrating one
year on the dazzling gay scene and plans to lose himself completely in its transient
pleasures. Clint has fled New York with a sense of unease in the wake of a vicious
gay-bashing and a night in the sexual underground. Buzz, Boo, Toro, Fredo, and Linda are
cruising the city looking for danger. So is Dave, a "leatherman" devoted S&M
and testing limits.
And in the streets a priest is
searching for a young hustler named Angel, determined to bring him to Jesus. Also roaming
this sensual night are a black "cowboy;" a bodybuilder obsessed with his sexual
prowess; a hilarious drag-queen director hired to rehearse her stars for a closeted
Hollywood mogul, a man determined to challenge his manipulative lover, a heterosexual man
and his girlfriend entangled in sexual recriminations, and a middle-aged romantic hiding
in memory and fantasy from a new gay world of youth and beauty.
As Santa Ana winds, known for
stirring up desires and violence, breathe fire down the hills of Los Angeles, this cast of
characters circle ever closer to the night--and to a confrontation unforgettable as
astonishing as it is inevitable.
The Coming of the Night is as much
an ode to the golden age of promiscuity as it is an unflinching exploration of the dark
side of desire. Tightly constructed, beautifully executed, humorous and compassionate, it
proves once again that as a novelist and trenchant chronicler of gay life, John Rechy has
no parallel. |
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"Fresh, beautiful,
totally courageous and totally cool, passionate.... His uncompromising honesty as a gay
writer has provoked as much fear as admiration...John Rechy doesn't fit into categories.
He transcends them. His individual vision is unique, perfect, loving, and strong."
Carolyn See, presenting
the
PEN-USA West's Lifetime
Achievement Award
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 Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens
Beneath the Skin
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