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"A Substantial Artist"
The following is from www.johnrechy.com
JOHN RECHY is the recipient of two coveted
Lifetime Achievement Awards: PEN-USA-West’s 1997 Lifetime Achievement Award and
The Publishing Triangle’s William Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. In September 2000, a CD-Rom of his life and works--"Memories and Desire: The Worlds of John Rechy" (produced through the Annenberg Center at the University of Southern
California)--debuted at the Museum of Modern Art in Los Angeles to an overflow
crowd. Last August, Rechy's eagerly awaited novel The Coming
of the Night was published by Grove/Atlantic and appeared as # 2 on the Los Angeles Time's Bestseller List. His 12th novel marks the author's return to some
of the scenes and themes of his now-classic first novel, City
of Night. The paperback edition was released in September 2000.
Greeted with controversy when they first appeared, Rechy's books have in
recent years been singled out for major prominence. This year City of Night was named as one of the 25 all time "best gay
novels" by the Publishing Triangle in New York. His The
Sexual Outlaw: A Documentary was included by the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review as among the 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the century. In a
recent issue of the Los Angeles Times Book Review devoted to "L.A.
Literature," Rechy was repeatedly named by other writers, including Critic and
Author Mike Davis (City of Quartz), as among the five most important writers to
have written about Southern California.
Rechy is the first novelist to receive PEN-USA-West's prestigious Lifetime
Achievement Award. The previous winners are Billy Wilder, Neil Simon, and Betty
Friedan. In informing Rechy of the honor, Sherrill Britton, Executive Director
of PEN-West wrote: "For more than three decades your highly original and
exceptionally honest work has represented the very ideals that PEN stands
for--literary distinction and a stand against censorship and cultural
tyranny."
Presenting the PEN Award to Rechy, Author and Washington Post Book Critic
Carolyn See described Rechy's voice as "fresh, beautiful, totally courageous-and
totally cool, passionate . . . twisting and pulling at the forms and contours of
the American language ... a prose revolution. His individual vision is unique,
perfect, loving and strong... [He uses] his talent to illuminate the lives of
the scorned and the ignored-women, the poor, the crazy, and the sad ... He
speaks for those who can't speak for themselves. . . [He] has always been the
steadfast champion of the disregarded, no matter their gender or station in
life."
In April, 1999, Rechy received his second Lifetime Achievement Award, the
William Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award from The Publishing Triangle, at
the New School in New York. The announcement of the award quoted Edmund White's
description of Rechy as "one of the most heroic figures of contemporary American
life" and "a touchstone of moral integrity and artistic innovation."
In his introduction of Rechy at the presentation, Author and Critic Michael
Bronski said, "[He] super-radically and forever altered how mainstream American.
culture wrote about, saw, experienced, and conceptualized homosexuality... All
of [his] novels are vital to both gay and American literature ... What [he] has
given for more than 30 years is a wonderful and terrifying gift. . a vision of a
complicated, complex, and wonderful world... He has given us life and
literature." And Critic and Author Jameson Currier wrote in the April 2, 1999
"New York Blade News," "Perhaps more than any other American author in the 20th century, his writings have helped shape the sexual consciousness of several
generations of gay men."
The CD Rom of Rechy's life marks the first time that a writer's life and
works have been so explored. After a press preview of it, Los Angeles Times Film
critic Kevin Thomas wrote: "It interweaves three parts, 'Memories, Bodies and
Cruising,’ which bring alive visually Rechy's reflections upon his complex,
impassioned life as a gay icon."
Rechy's first novel, City of Night, was an
international bestseller, and is now taught in contemporary-literature courses
throughout the country, along with others of his books. His The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez is required reading in
many Chicano Literature courses. His work has been translated into approximately
20 languages. His second novel, Numbers, was also a
national bestseller, as was his nonfiction documentary, The
Sexual Outlaw. In addition, he has written, This
Day's Death, The Vampires, The Fourth Angel, Rushes, Bodies and Souls, Marilyn's
Daughter , and Our Ladv of Babylon.
His play Tigers Wild, directed by Michael
Ewing and starring Frank Whaley, was performed Off-Broadway at Playhouse 91 in
the 1986-87 season. Produced in Los Angeles as The Fourth Angel, it starred
Sarah Jessica Parker. His one-act play, Momma As She Became-But Not As She Was,
is performed throughout the country and Europe, and has been widely
anthologized.
He has twice been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards Body of
Work designation. He is a National Endowment for the Arts fellow. He has
received Phi Kappa Phi and Longview Foundation awards for his fiction.
He has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Duke, UCLA, USC, Occidental College,
University of Northern Illinois, among other academic institutions. He was the
keynote speaker at the 1999 Writers' Conference at UCLA and at the 1990
Out/Write National Writers Conference at San Francisco. He has been a key
participant at numerous other literary conferences, including the 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Festival, the Guadalajara International Book Fair, Miami Book
Fair, and New Orleans Literary Festival.
He has written essays for The Nation, Los Angeles Times Books, Washington
Post Book World, The Saturday Review, New York Times Book Review, San Francisco
Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Dallas Morning News, London Magazine,
Evergreen Review, New York Magazine, The Advocate, Mother Jones, Premiere, and
many other national publications.
Of Mexican-Scottish descent, he makes his home in Los Angeles, California,
where he teaches literature and film courses, for writers, in the graduate
division of the University of Southern California.
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