City of Night<\/em> “a classic American novel.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
A first-generation Mexican American born in El Paso in 1931, Rechy is the author of seventeen books; his work has been translated into approximately twenty languages. He is the first novelist to receive PEN-Center-USA’s Lifetime Achievement honor.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
In presenting the Robert Kirsch Los Angeles Times<\/em> lifetime achievement honor to John Rechy in 2018, critic and author Jonathan Kirsch noted: “Fifty-five years ago, Grove Press published John Rechy’s City of Night<\/em> and American literature was forever changed. The story of a gay street hustler, the book is both gritty and beautiful.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Artists who have acknowledged Rechy’s influence include David Bowie, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Soft Cell, painter David Hockney, and film-maker Gus van Sant. Author Michael Cunningham noted the breadth of Rechy’s influence: His “books gave a lot of us a certain sense of permission to write about our actual lives.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Upon acquiring Rechy’s papers, Dr. David Coleman, director of The Wittliff Collections said: “John Rechy is a literary legend and is one of the greatest writers to come from the American Southwest. Mr. Rechy carefully maintained his literary papers from the very beginning of his career, and the breadth and depth of the resulting collection is extraordinary. This archive will nourish the significant and ongoing scholarly interest in Mr. Rechy for generations to come.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Rechy added: “I was born in El Paso, Texas, and for years roamed the country. Having my archives\u2014reflections of a whole life\u2014reside in The Wittliff Collections, so rich in history and modern life captured by a diversity of voices, is, for me and my work, a return home, the grand home where we belong.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Rechy’s literary papers comprise over one hundred boxes and include the original manuscripts and drafts of all of his written work\u2014published and unpublished, spanning more than seventy years of his work.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Among the many highlights in this collection are the galley proofs on which Rechy virtually rewrote his debut novel with pen and pencil on the margins and on typed pasted strips. Also included is the original manuscript with many revisions of Rechy’s first actual novel, Pablo!<\/em>, written when he was eighteen and published in 2018. In his introduction, Professor Francisco Lomeli locates it among the most significant works of early Hispanic literature and a precursor of “magical realism.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Along with voluminous correspondence with other writers\u2014and fully detailed correspondence with his various editors and publishers\u2014there is a singular collection of the author’s prolific early 1960s correspondence with a friend and patron, written while Rechy had returned to complete City of Night<\/em> in his mother’s home in El Paso. This treasure trove of letters serves as a virtual diary of one of the most significant periods in Rechy’s personal and literary life.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Many of Rechy\u2019s other books have also been widely acclaimed. The Sexual Outlaw: a Documentary<\/em> was listed by the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> as one of the 100 most important non-fiction works of the last century. The New York Times<\/em> recently included the same book in a short list of works influencing “generation- X.” The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez<\/em> along with other of his books, is widely taught in literature courses. In 2018, After the Blue Hour<\/em>, won Lambda Literary Foundation’s best fiction of the year award.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Anthologized in his 2004 book Beneath the Skin<\/em>, Rechy\u2019s essays and film and book reviews have appeared in The Atlantic<\/em>, Nation<\/em>, New York Review of Books<\/em>, Texas Observer<\/em>, Dallas Morning News<\/em>, and The New York Times Book Review<\/em>. They range in subject from groundbreaking investigative reports into conditions at Huntsville Prison and in juvenile detention facilities in El Paso; the military persecution of the GI’s For Peace; early gay protests in Los Angeles before the Stonewall riots; and explorations into the life and death of Marilyn Monroe.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Revised extensively each semester for courses he innovated for writers at USC, his lectures on literature and film along with detailed lectures on creative writing comprised lectures he gave at UCLA, USC, Harvard, Yale, among other universities.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
From his background, there are historical photographs and early press writings, including a pen-written gold-embossed invitation from Porfirio Diaz to his grandfather, Diaz’s personal physician.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Among artifacts in the collection are Rechy’s classic leather jacket and Tony Lama boots that feature in his writings and that Rechy identifies as part of his attire “back in the day” on the streets; also, the Underwood typewriter, rented and later lovingly purchased.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
His artwork during his teen years features a favorite rendition of a beautiful dark-skinned Mexican young woman and a blonde American angel.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Praised for his “bold and inventive” style and his “power to move and exhilarate,” Rechy, an NEA Fellow, is the recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. In addition to his PEN-USA lifetime distinction, he is the first recipient of ONE Magazine<\/em>‘s Culture Hero Award. In 2014 he received the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano\/Latino Literature.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
He is also the author of three stage plays: Tigers Wild<\/em> (first performed as The Fourth Angel<\/em>), Rushes<\/em> (based on his novel of the same title), and Momma As She Became – Not as She Was<\/em>, a one-act play widely staged.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
“We are excited about the opportunity to facilitate much additional research on this important American author,” says Wittliff Director Coleman.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wittliff Collections at Texas State University acquired the complete archive of John Rechy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[813,830,844],"class_list":["post-1709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lone-star-literary-life","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-newsbrief"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}