An eviscerating takedown from the period in The New York Review of Books began with the derogatory headline “Fruit Salad” and continued like something out of a “Save the Children” literary supplement, full of homophobic epithets and excruciating puns. At some point in the ‘90s, a flavorless clothing behemoth would surely have tried to appropriate his image to sell khakis.īut while Kerouac’s 1957 countercultural opus was immediately greeted with voice-of-a-generation praise, Rechy’s 1963 debut, City of Night, was met with derision, bigotry and regular placement on banned books lists. Oscar-winning directors would have spent a half century vying to bring his gay-hustling odyssey to the big screen. Posters of Rechy’s matinee idol profile would adorn dorm room walls, brooding above poetic aphorisms capturing the dissonant orgy of modern life. In a more reasonable America, John Rechy would be as iconic as Jack Kerouac.
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