John Rechy, for those this side of the pond who may have never heard of him, was hustling for a living & writing startling exposés of his gay lifestyle when Aiden Shaw was still in nappies.

Author Charles Casillo manages to reflect the dichotomy that is John Rechy in his book ‘Outlaw’.

We caught up with Charles to find out more.

How did you connect with Rechy to write the bio?
I read City of Night as a teenager and, like so many readers through the years, was enormously touched by it. It was hard for me to believe that the moody, broody and utterly cool narrator of the book--who could describe decadence and alienation in such a lyrical way--actually existed. When I moved to Los Angeles I started working for a short-lived, glossy magazine named "Alex." The editor asked me for ideas. I said, "Well, how about John Rechy?" I thought, "I don`t want to meet him as a fan, but if I could write about him, as a professional, that would be terrific." For years I had been writing letters to Rechy - which I never sent, by the way — telling him how much I admired City of Night. I always felt they weren`t good enough to send. That he had probably heard it all before.

But I did send him a letter requesting an interview via the University where he taught a master class. Rechy, though, was tough about who he would do an interview with. He had been burned by journalists in the past. So he asked to see some of my clips. I sent, I believe, one article--one of my best--a full-page profile I wrote for the New York Times and a novel I was working on at the time, "The Marilyn Diaries," which is about Marilyn Monroe. I knew he shared my obsession with Marilyn. As a result of the work I sent him, Rechy agreed to an interview. When the article was published, Rechy liked it very much and the biography grew from that profile.

What are some of the things that fascinated you about Rechy?
Before I met Rechy, he was an enigma. Although he was a well-known writer, he wasn`t in the public eye. You never saw him on talk shows. You rarely read interviews with him. Everything I felt about him came from his work. The brooding heroes in his books are always inscrutable--detached but with a longing to connect--mixing toughness with tenderness, ego with vulnerability.

I suspected that Rechy was an author who based his protagonists on himself and that most of his fiction was autobiographical. The fact that he could interact and then write about these eccentric characters in these bizarre situations told me that Rechy must be an extraordinary person going through life with astonishing things happening to him. For me he developed the kind of mysterious and unreachable appeal that only certain dead movie stars held for me, like Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe. A few years after I discovered Rechy he wrote a fictitious novel about Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn had been a muse of mine since I was eleven so I knew Rechy and I were spiritual brothers.

What do you think of the duality of his public persona as literary legend and street hustler?

I look at it as brilliant performance art. Since Rechy`s most famous work, City of Night, is widely known to be autobiographical, and in that novel the narrator is a hustler, the public expects to see that street persona when meeting him. To this day, when he goes to readings or gives speeches he becomes that character, complete with muscle shirt and tight jeans. He never disappoints. Originally Rechy developed that streetwise character as a mask to protect his true self, which he still hadn`t learned to value. Don`t you find that people who are very sensitive develop a series of masks to help them deal with different situations? You have your masks, I have mine. Sometimes, though, the mask becomes ingrained in the person’s personality, and it really does become a part of their true self. I think that happened to John. On the street corners he perfected a fantasy figure--a tough macho stud. That rough trade character was far removed from who he really was, yet he found that the persona was so compelling he couldn`t give it up, so he combined it with his literary personality. They meshed. He`d go to literary dinner parties wearing his hustler costume, tight jeans and boots and an unbuttoned shirt, seducing everyone, and then he`d step back and want to talk about the arts. It worked for him. It`s part of his legend.

Where would you place Rechy in the pantheon of 20th century authors?
I think he has comfortably carved out his own niche. City of Night certainly is a masterpiece that changed the face of publishing. There`s no doubt about it. His was the first American book to come out in the mainstream to openly discuss homosexuality, hustlers, drag queens, gay bars. Most people had never seen anything like it. And he wrote about these subjects that were considered squalid and sleazy with such a poetic intensity. It broke down taboos. It inspired. It paved the way.

Other than that, many of his other books document certain aspects of the homosexual culture in a particular era. Numbers reveals the inner workings of the confident cruisers in 1966 Griffith Park, with big muscles and bigger egos. The Sexual Outlaw, in the late 70s, was an angry book defending promiscuity among gay men. Rushes is about the extreme masculine roles, the macho role playing--cops, construction workers, uniforms--that were so prevalent in S&M clubs in the era just before AIDS. Rechy`s books will be looked to by many for his excellent craftsmanship--each demonstrate his talent for structure, for writing gorgeous sentences, and his flair for description

As a person, not as a literary legend, what did you think of Rechy?
You certainly couldn`t ask for a more charming or fascinating dinner companion. He`s an excellent story teller--chatting about anything from a hustling experience in Times Square in the 50s, to an encounter with Allen Ginsberg, to a riot involving an angry mob of hustlers and drag queens against the cops in a downtown Los Angeles donut shop. He was very different from what I expected from reading his books. I mean in Numbers, and City of Night, he is very standoffish. Aloof. Moody. When I met him, I saw nothing of the hip street hustler--which would have intimidated me. From day one, he was really charming, witty, affable. After I got to know him I found him to be incredibly warm and caring. A good friend. One of the problems with becoming close with him through the years is that, when writing about him, I always had to separate myself from being a friend and writing his biography. I had to be true to my journalistic instincts, even if I felt it would make him angry or in some cases, even hurt him.

After I met him I realized that he was many different personality types inhabiting one body. One thing that most of the public doesn`t know about John is that he is very, very funny. He has a very quick and cutting wit. Just this terrific sense of humour, which he will often turn on himself. Then it was fascinating to observe how he could fall into his hustler character and suddenly become cool and mysterious.

Read part two of the interview.


Outlaw - by John Rechy
Publisher - Alyson Publications
ISBN - 1-55583-734-4
Price - £10.99

Buy `Outlaw` now