The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens
The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens

Author: John Rechy

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published: 2007-12-01

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 1555847285

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“A funny, sexy, far-fetched coming-of-age story” from the award-winning, New York Times–bestselling author of City of Night (The Washington Post). John Rechy—described by Gore Vidal as “one of the few original writers of the last century”—delivers a riotous bildungsroman that pays homage to the classic eighteenth-century picaresque. Loosely inspired by Fielding’s Tom Jones, The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens follows the journey of handsome Lyle Clemens as he travels through the religious fundamentalist world of Texas to the gambling palaces of Las Vegas and the enticing traps of Los Angeles’s mythologies. As Lyle approaches adulthood, everyone wants him to be something he’s not. His beautiful mother wants to make him into a reflection of the cowboy who abandoned her; a group of avaricious fundamentalists plot to convert him into “the Lord’s Cowboy” to rouse their televangelical empire to new frenzied heights; and the lovely Maria wants him to fulfill her varying fantasies of “true love.” When Lyle leaves home to make his own destiny, he encounters a gallery of charlatans and wistful souls, quirky gamblers, aging starlets, and wily pornographers. The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens is “a potent compound of both sex and rapture . . . sly, smart, sexy and laugh-out-loud funny, but it is also tinged with sorrow and ultimately elevated into the realm of magic” (The Los Angeles Times Book Review). “Ambitious and very funny . . . a tall tale, a simultaneously sweet and vicious satire of contemporary America . . . a comic tour de force and, at the same time, a truly heartfelt book.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens
The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens

Author: John Rechy

Publisher: Grove Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0802141668

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This funny coming-of-age story follows Lyle Clemens as he travels through the religious fundamentalist world of Texas to the gambling palaces of Las Vegas and the enticing traps of Los Angeles.

Understanding John Rechy
Understanding John Rechy

Author: María DeGuzmán

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press

Published: 2019-09-19

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1643360078

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In this first book-length monograph on the Mexican American novelist, essayist, and playwright John Rechy, best known for his debut novel City of Night, María DeGuzmán offers a conceptually clear yet aesthetically, philosophically, and socio-politically fine-grained analysis of the spectrum of his writing. Recipient of PEN Center USA's Lifetime Achievement Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, ONE Magazine's National Gay and Lesbian Cultural Hero Award, the William Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Luis Leal Award for Excellence in Chicano/Latino Literature, and the Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement, Rechy is the author of fifteen novels, at least three plays, and several volumes of nonfiction. He has written for the Nation, the New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, the New York Times, and Saturday Review. In Understanding John Rechy, María DeGuzmán offers a brief biographical overview and then traces the development of Rechy's craft through his major works by calling attention to central issues, recurring situations and characters, styles, and special techniques. She examines the complexities of his representation of identity, the subjectivity in his male homosexual odyssey and identity quest novels, and his experimentation with genre. She offers a concise yet intricate analysis of the major organizing paradigms and themes, genres, modes, styles, and handling of the gay Chicano's oeuvre. The book's guiding analysis pays particular attention to the ways in which Rechy's works function as cultural critique challenging mainstream values in a deep-structure manner.

Brown on Brown
Brown on Brown

Author: Frederick Luis Aldama

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2009-07-21

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 0292796587

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Common conceptions permeating U.S. ethnic queer theory tend to confuse aesthetics with real-world acts and politics. Often Chicano/a representations of gay and lesbian experiences in literature and film are analyzed simply as propaganda. The cognitive, emotional, and narrational ingredients (that is, the subject matter and the formal traits) of those representations are frequently reduced to a priori agendas that emphasize a politics of difference. In this book, Frederick Luis Aldama follows an entirely different approach. He investigates the ways in which race and gay/lesbian sexuality intersect and operate in Chicano/a literature and film while taking into full account their imaginative nature and therefore the specific kind of work invested in them. Also, Aldama frames his analyses within today's larger (globalized) context of postcolonial literary and filmic canons that seek to normalize heterosexual identity and experience. Throughout the book, Aldama applies his innovative approach to throw new light on the work of authors Arturo Islas, Richard Rodriguez, John Rechy, Ana Castillo, and Sheila Ortiz Taylor, as well as that of film director Edward James Olmos. In doing so, Aldama aims to integrate and deepen Chicano literary and filmic studies within a comparative perspective. Aldama's unusual juxtapositions of narrative materials and cultural personae, and his premise that literature and film produce fictional examples of a social and historical reality concerned with ethnic and sexual issues largely unresolved, make this book relevant to a wide range of readers.

About My Life and the Kept Woman
About My Life and the Kept Woman

Author: John Rechy

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2009-03-17

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1555848117

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The long-awaited memoir by “one of the few original American writers of the last century” is a testament to the power of self-acceptance (Gore Vidal). John Rechy, author of City of Night and The Sexual Outlaw, has always known discrimination. Raised Mexican-American in El Paso, Texas, at a time when Latino children were routinely segregated, Rechy was often assumed to be Anglo because of his light skin, and had his name “changed” for him by a teacher, from Juan to John. As he grew older—and as his fascination with the memory of a notorious kept woman in his childhood deepened—Rechy became aware that his differences lay not just in his heritage, but in his sexuality. While he performed the roles expected of him by others—the authoritarians in the US Army during the Korean War, the bigoted relatives of his Anglo college classmates, or the men and women who wanted him to be something he was not—he never allowed them to define him. The “riveting” story of a life that bears witness to some of the most riotous changes of the past century, About My Life and the Kept Woman is as much a portrait of intolerance as of an individual who defied it to forge his own path (The Advocate). “Rechy might be called the first bard of West Hollywood.” —The New York Times “A skillfully paced story . . . As a memoirist, Rechy is both participant and observer, and he segues as easily between narrative and exegesis as his younger self did between the lure of the wild streets and the embrace of his traditional family.” —Los Angeles Magazine

Latino Writers and Journalists
Latino Writers and Journalists

Author: Jamie Martinez Wood

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1438107854

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Provides short biographies of Latino American writers and journalists and information on their works.

Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States [2 volumes]
Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States [2 volumes]

Author: Emmanuel S. Nelson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2009-07-14

Total Pages: 827

ISBN-13: 031334860X

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In this two-volume work, hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries survey contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer American literature and its social contexts. Comprehensive in scope and accessible to students and general readers, Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States explores contemporary American LGBTQ literature and its social, political, cultural, and historical contexts. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries written by expert contributors. Students of literature and popular culture will appreciate the encyclopedia's insightful survey and discussion of LGBTQ authors and their works, while students of history and social issues will value the encyclopedia's use of literature to explore LGBTQ American society. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and lists additional sources of information. To further enhance study and understanding, the encyclopedia closes with a selected general bibliography of print and electronic resources for student research.

Everything You Need to Know About Latino History
Everything You Need to Know About Latino History

Author: Himilce Novas

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2007-11-27

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1101213531

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The popular primer to Latino life and culture. Latinos represent the fastest-growing ethnic population in the United States. In an accessible and entertaining question-and-answer format, this completely revised 2008 edition provides the most current perspective on Latino history in the making, including: • New Mexico governor Bill Richardson’s announced candidacy for the 2008 presidential election • Ugly Betty—the hit ABC TV show based on the Latino telenovela phenomenon • The number of Latino players in Major League baseball surpassing the 25 percent mark • Immigration legislation and the battle over the Mexican border • The state of Castro’s health and what it means for Cuba More than ever, this concise yet comprehensive reference guide is the ideal introduction to the vast and varied history and culture of this multifaceted ethnic group.

Pablo!
Pablo!

Author: John Rechy

Publisher: Arte Publico Press

Published: 2018-03-31

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1518504876

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In a jungle village an old man sees a strange girl who has collapsed in a field. Once a holy man, he is sure she is not an evil spirit. He carries her inside and puts her in a hammock, despite his wife’s warning that the girl is the evil Xtabay, pretending to be lost and exhausted. The girl has fled her home in search of a mysterious boy who wandered into her village. She senses in him her own despair and loneliness: “I loved him with the intensity of my soul and heart and body,” and intends to follow him to the "great modern city" he was seeking. Using archetypal figures — the man, the boy, the woman—Rechy’s Pablo! is steeped in indigenous myths and superstitions. Restless spirits roam the dark jungle howling for redemption amid the pyramids of their ancestors, witches predict doom and snakes stir ancient curses, like the disastrous loss of crops. Native religious rituals conflict dangerously with the Catholic religion. The novel is framed by the Mayan legend, “And the soul must wander aimlessly until the sun and the moon shall fuse.” Like the forgotten bride who longs endlessly for the elusive sun, the girl searches for the boy in the vast contemporary city. At the book’s core, Rechy explores mankind’s longing for connection, for the surcease of evasive love. John Rechy wrote this first novel in 1948-49 when he was 18 years old. Unpublished, it languished in Special Collections at Boston University until a chance encounter with University of California, Santa Barbara scholar and critic Francisco Lomeli led to the ultimate publication of this long-lost treasure by the acclaimed author of the groundbreaking novel, City of Night.

Ethnic American Literature
Ethnic American Literature

Author: Emmanuel S. Nelson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2015-02-17

Total Pages: 1119

ISBN-13:

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Unlike any other book of its kind, this volume celebrates published works from a broad range of American ethnic groups not often featured in the typical canon of literature. This culturally rich encyclopedia contains 160 alphabetically arranged entries on African American, Asian American, Latino/a, and Native American literary traditions, among others. The book introduces the uniquely American mosaic of multicultural literature by chronicling the achievements of American writers of non-European descent and highlighting the ethnic diversity of works from the colonial era to the present. The work features engaging topics like the civil rights movement, bilingualism, assimilation, and border narratives. Entries provide historical overviews of literary periods along with profiles of major authors and great works, including Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Maya Angelou, Sherman Alexie, A Raisin in the Sun, American Born Chinese, and The House on Mango Street. The book also provides concise overviews of genres not often featured in textbooks, like the Chinese American novel, African American young adult literature, Mexican American autobiography, and Cuban American poetry.