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The Coming of the Night
It is 1981, a hot summer night, and an unscripted ritual is about to take place. Jesse, "the kid," is celebrating one year on the dazzling gay scene and plans to lose himself in its transient pleasures. Clint has fled New York with a sense of unease in the wake of a vicious gay-bashing. Buzz, Boo, Toro, Fredo, and Linda are cruising the city looking for danger, and so is Dave, a "leatherman" devoted to S&M and testing limits. And a priest is searching the streets for a young hustler named Angel, determined to bring him to Jesus.
In this city of night we meet a black cowboy, a bodybuilder obsessed with his sexual prowess, a drag-queen porn director hired to rehearse her stars for a closeted Hollywood mogul, and a middle-aged romantic hiding from a new gay world increasingly obsessed with youth and beauty. As the Santa Ana winds, renowned for stirring up desires and violence, breathe fire down the hills of Los Angeles, this cast of characters circles ever closer to the night--and to a confrontation as astonishing as it is inevitable.
In this city of night we meet a black cowboy, a bodybuilder obsessed with his sexual prowess, a drag-queen porn director hired to rehearse her stars for a closeted Hollywood mogul, and a middle-aged romantic hiding from a new gay world increasingly obsessed with youth and beauty. As the Santa Ana winds, renowned for stirring up desires and violence, breathe fire down the hills of Los Angeles, this cast of characters circles ever closer to the night--and to a confrontation as astonishing as it is inevitable.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1999
16 people are currently reading
230 people want to read
About the author
John Rechy
35 books220 followersJohn Rechy is an American author, the child of a Scottish father and a Mexican-American mother. In his novels he has written extensively about homosexual culture in Los Angeles and wider America, and is among the pioneers of modern LGBT literature. Drawing on his own background, he has also contributed to Chicano literature, especially with his novel The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, which is taught in several Chicano literature courses in the United States. His work has often faced censorship due to its sexual content, particularly (but not solely) in the 1960s and 1970s, but books such as City of Night have been best sellers, and he has many literary admirers.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 16, 2022
A blend of faux-porn and satire, The Coming of the Night reminds us that in the so-called golden years or the glory days of gay sexual liberation (ie pre-Aids) the community suffered from racism, ageism, lookism and the merciless snap judgements of ruthless size queens.
While evoking porn conventions in this work (and explicitly mocking them in the porn shoot sequences), Rechy repeatedly veers off from the predictable erotic outcomes at the last moment, as characters judge and reject each other rather than hook up. Egos are brittle and this work is populated by stereotypes; however, these stereotypes did exist and still do flourish: Hence, the satire.
Also amusing at times for evoking forgotten cultural tidbits of the times (looking at you, Gino Vanelli!). The final park-orgy scene, brutal in an all out macho excess (of sex and violence and violent sex) is rendered way too melodramatic by a gaunt figure at the edge of the scene calling out, "The plague, the plague!"
While evoking porn conventions in this work (and explicitly mocking them in the porn shoot sequences), Rechy repeatedly veers off from the predictable erotic outcomes at the last moment, as characters judge and reject each other rather than hook up. Egos are brittle and this work is populated by stereotypes; however, these stereotypes did exist and still do flourish: Hence, the satire.
Also amusing at times for evoking forgotten cultural tidbits of the times (looking at you, Gino Vanelli!). The final park-orgy scene, brutal in an all out macho excess (of sex and violence and violent sex) is rendered way too melodramatic by a gaunt figure at the edge of the scene calling out, "The plague, the plague!"
November 24, 2007
Open this book to any page and you'll be bombarded with one graphic, gratuitous, poorly written, laugh out loud sex scene after another (Oh yeah baby give it to me, that's it like that . . . seriously that's how inane the dialogue is). Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Rechy's and some of his work is downright brilliant. I loved City of Night, This Day's Death, The Fourth Angel and especially Bodies and Souls. However, The Coming of the Night is a thinly vieled excuse for straight up porn.
I went into the novel excited, thinking Rechy would have something profound to express about gay life before "the coming of the night", a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic. Instead I was bombarded with episodic sexcapades of several loosely connected one dimensional characters. The sections involving Clint, haunted by and trying to escape from the mysterious "cancer" killing off his friends in New York; Orville, a handsome gay black male trying to get by in the predominantly white gay community and Thomas, a lonely single "old queen" who just wants to be loved were the only compelling and interesting characters to me. As an ardent supporter of AIDS awareness and a gay black male getting up there in age, these characters could have really got a message across. Instead they, and the rest of the novel, are squandered away under the weight of the grossly explicit sex scenes that appear on EVERY page.
Other characters were pointless. Za-Za LaGrand's sections (a thinly veiled reference to porn director Chi Chi LaRue) were utterly pointless and did nothing to further the plot along. Dave, the sado-masochist leather biker man and Ernie, the body builder with endowment issues were one dimensional characters I could care less about and Buzz, Boo and Fredo, the homophobe gay bashing punks were predictable and boring.
It's sad that this novel is so bad because it really had a lot of potential to get across some extremely powerful messages. Instead of focusing on the characters, fleshing them out so I could care for them, Rechy gets too wrapped up in the sex scenes, the majority of which are poorly written with some of the worst dirty talk dialogue I have ever read. Read this only if you've read every Jackie Collins novel and long for a dirtier gay version of what she does. Rechy must have wrote this for the money because it really stinks. PU.
I went into the novel excited, thinking Rechy would have something profound to express about gay life before "the coming of the night", a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic. Instead I was bombarded with episodic sexcapades of several loosely connected one dimensional characters. The sections involving Clint, haunted by and trying to escape from the mysterious "cancer" killing off his friends in New York; Orville, a handsome gay black male trying to get by in the predominantly white gay community and Thomas, a lonely single "old queen" who just wants to be loved were the only compelling and interesting characters to me. As an ardent supporter of AIDS awareness and a gay black male getting up there in age, these characters could have really got a message across. Instead they, and the rest of the novel, are squandered away under the weight of the grossly explicit sex scenes that appear on EVERY page.
Other characters were pointless. Za-Za LaGrand's sections (a thinly veiled reference to porn director Chi Chi LaRue) were utterly pointless and did nothing to further the plot along. Dave, the sado-masochist leather biker man and Ernie, the body builder with endowment issues were one dimensional characters I could care less about and Buzz, Boo and Fredo, the homophobe gay bashing punks were predictable and boring.
It's sad that this novel is so bad because it really had a lot of potential to get across some extremely powerful messages. Instead of focusing on the characters, fleshing them out so I could care for them, Rechy gets too wrapped up in the sex scenes, the majority of which are poorly written with some of the worst dirty talk dialogue I have ever read. Read this only if you've read every Jackie Collins novel and long for a dirtier gay version of what she does. Rechy must have wrote this for the money because it really stinks. PU.
May 14, 2018
Although I lived through the time period in which this novel is set, I can honestly say that my lifestyle never looked like any of those depicted by the characters illustrated so vividly here. A single day and the intersection of the lives of the characters is driven by the strange Santa Anna winds in L.A. This is a glimpse into a time of sexual freedom before the AIDS epidemic changed it forever. Although set in California I'm sure you could have found similar experiences almost anywhere in North America or western Europe at the same time period, it's just not a world I know much about nor necessary admire, but it was certainly eye opening.
April 9, 2008
A bold, scathing look at the carefree, gay community of southern California in 1982. Rechy used this running story line of several characters and the lives and choices they make over one hot summer night as an indictment of the sexual recklessness of gay men in those last days before AIDS.
March 31, 2016
The "big conclusion" was not inevitably worth trudging through the rest of the book. I felt at times I was just not 'getting it' because for such a lauded author to use such dull prose and inane dialogue over saturated, graphic sex just made it feel like reading trashy erotica.
February 26, 2021
Ugh this was so terrible. None of the characters are likeable, and most aren't interesting enough to want to read about. They often have (long, selfish) internal monologues in similar voices, using similar vocabulary (like using "sant'ana" to refer to the Santa Ana winds, which no one does).
Characters don't have to be great people in order to make for a great book, but they do have to be interesting. Yes, it's a slice of gay male life in the '80s (there are almost no women in this book), but it is neither insightful nor creative enough to justify the stories. These are awful people leading vapid lives, told in rambling asides that are sometimes meant to be "shocking" but mostly prove to be boring.
Also, the metaphor of the building summer heat gets beaten over your head again and again, to no great purpose.
This book made me feel embarrassed for the author.
Characters don't have to be great people in order to make for a great book, but they do have to be interesting. Yes, it's a slice of gay male life in the '80s (there are almost no women in this book), but it is neither insightful nor creative enough to justify the stories. These are awful people leading vapid lives, told in rambling asides that are sometimes meant to be "shocking" but mostly prove to be boring.
Also, the metaphor of the building summer heat gets beaten over your head again and again, to no great purpose.
This book made me feel embarrassed for the author.
January 2, 2022
I loved this book. It was about a confluence of sexually active gay men in LA during the Sant'anna winds in 1981. Some of the frantic coupling happened and other guys were thwarted in their cruising efforts. The big irony here is that in 1981 AIDS was in its incipient stage so we can safely assume so many of the characters later became infected. There were some stretches of brilliant writing, particularly with the description of the orgies and a visit to the Mineshaft. I recommend this to all fans of Rechy's writing
May 2, 2022
and 1/s...
Reading this in 2022 reveals whilst there are things the same with gay men such a preoccupation with random sex..I found it somewhat amusing when reading about the 'leather bars' and the 'dirt' sex that ensued; amusing because it appears the leather bars of the 70s-80's are now something in the past except for the occasional bear in a harness.
I have no doubt that when this book came out it would have SHOCKED...today one does not even blink !!!!
Reading this in 2022 reveals whilst there are things the same with gay men such a preoccupation with random sex..I found it somewhat amusing when reading about the 'leather bars' and the 'dirt' sex that ensued; amusing because it appears the leather bars of the 70s-80's are now something in the past except for the occasional bear in a harness.
I have no doubt that when this book came out it would have SHOCKED...today one does not even blink !!!!
September 12, 2022
Full review here:
https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/...
Ultimately, it's the portrait of the days right before AIDS, when sex and sexuality were the reward for the sheer amounts of shit society poured down upon the queers. Sadly, as we all know, it got worse.
Well worth reading.
https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/...
Ultimately, it's the portrait of the days right before AIDS, when sex and sexuality were the reward for the sheer amounts of shit society poured down upon the queers. Sadly, as we all know, it got worse.
Well worth reading.
July 15, 2014
Jesse, who is arguably the main character, only because the novel starts and ends with him, thinks, in the opening segment of the book, that he “[can] hardly wait for the coming of the night.” The “the” in the title is significant, because the book is not about the coming of Jesse’s night, of that particular night for all the characters—the events of the novel, apart from a single flashback that runs through one character’s mind, taking place over one Saturday in the Summer of 1981—but about the coming of the night that is the AIDS epidemic. Because he is such a great novelist, Rechy’s attitude to pre-AIDS gay promiscuity remains acutely ambiguous: on the one hand the book is drenched in lurid and emphatically unromantic sex; on the other, it offers a constant play on the martyrdom of such sex; of, as the character Clint muses at one point in the novel, “punishment for desire, sex that is no longer sex.”
I deeply regret my having missed a chance to study with Rechy at USC—his class was full by the time I registered—but I did meet him many years later and the meeting only emphasized his status in my mind as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and as one of my own personal literary heroes. His autobiographical debut novel—City of Night, whose title this one deliberately evokes—is a literary masterpiece, to which this is a sort of poorer cousin; but the same technical craftsmanship, the deep pathos, the complexity ingeniously attained through the literary multiplication of social and physiological surfaces, and the equivocal exposé of urban America’s glitzy nihilism are all there, as richly textured as ever. I lived very close to the world Rechy chronicles in this novel—and the work is as much a hymn to Los Angeles, to West Hollywood in particular, as it is a threnody for and a horrified valediction to a world long lost and possibly irrecoverable—so the resonances for me were doubly painful; but it would not be an exaggeration to say this novel does for the West Hollywood of the early 1980s what The Day of the Locust does for the Los Angeles of the 1930s.
The nuances and colors Rechy achieves through his miraculously close observation of West Hollywood, its pulse, its mystique, its unfathomable fusion of joy and desolation, are as vividly achieved as Proust’s madeleine, which Rechy uses in his work as a carefully deployed symbol of his own. In fact the novel abounds in a brilliant subtext of symbol and allegory, not the least in its exploration of a priest’s quest for a naked crucified Christ tattooed on the back of an eighteen-year-old male prostitute named Angel: these fiercely atonal symbols alone are, in all their fecundity, a delight to unravel and muse upon; but the novel succeeds primarily through its heartrending portrayal of the lives of ordinary people (unremarkable except for their beauty, the indomitable power and prolixity of their lust—their love for Maria Callas) shattered into a handful of literary shards looking for meaningful cohesion in the dream-laden heat of the City of Angels and predestined never to find it, because no such cohesion exists. Except in figments.
I deeply regret my having missed a chance to study with Rechy at USC—his class was full by the time I registered—but I did meet him many years later and the meeting only emphasized his status in my mind as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and as one of my own personal literary heroes. His autobiographical debut novel—City of Night, whose title this one deliberately evokes—is a literary masterpiece, to which this is a sort of poorer cousin; but the same technical craftsmanship, the deep pathos, the complexity ingeniously attained through the literary multiplication of social and physiological surfaces, and the equivocal exposé of urban America’s glitzy nihilism are all there, as richly textured as ever. I lived very close to the world Rechy chronicles in this novel—and the work is as much a hymn to Los Angeles, to West Hollywood in particular, as it is a threnody for and a horrified valediction to a world long lost and possibly irrecoverable—so the resonances for me were doubly painful; but it would not be an exaggeration to say this novel does for the West Hollywood of the early 1980s what The Day of the Locust does for the Los Angeles of the 1930s.
The nuances and colors Rechy achieves through his miraculously close observation of West Hollywood, its pulse, its mystique, its unfathomable fusion of joy and desolation, are as vividly achieved as Proust’s madeleine, which Rechy uses in his work as a carefully deployed symbol of his own. In fact the novel abounds in a brilliant subtext of symbol and allegory, not the least in its exploration of a priest’s quest for a naked crucified Christ tattooed on the back of an eighteen-year-old male prostitute named Angel: these fiercely atonal symbols alone are, in all their fecundity, a delight to unravel and muse upon; but the novel succeeds primarily through its heartrending portrayal of the lives of ordinary people (unremarkable except for their beauty, the indomitable power and prolixity of their lust—their love for Maria Callas) shattered into a handful of literary shards looking for meaningful cohesion in the dream-laden heat of the City of Angels and predestined never to find it, because no such cohesion exists. Except in figments.
February 24, 2014
I enjoyed this a lot and will continue with other Rechy books. I read City of Night first and this second. This is no City of Night but it was good, and I do still give very high marks, both to Mr. Rechy for not resting on his laurels and for writing something new, and for the book itself, very entertaining and thoughtful.
This book is a snapshot of gay culture in 1982, when the first whispers of AIDS were starting. I expected the book to eventually step into the AIDS crisis but it never does, making allusions to it but never going there outright. The book is more a day or a few days set in LA as the Sant'Anas blow a hot wind of change.
Rechy has a gift for being sex-positive with great characterization and still evoking feeling and meaning. I think there things are all necessary for good gay fiction and few authors can manage all three.
Rechy examines the gay culture of the early 1980's with several elements still resonating now. A wide cast of characters really try to include everyone, we see porn stars, gym bunnies, ultra macho daddies and past-it aunties.
"I accept those things, Thomas, the three curses in the gay world - unattractive, old, and fat. I've been spared the fourth curse, the curse of a small dick, but that's not a blessing for me because no one notices."
I loved the scenes at the porn shoot, to me this had the ultra vivid characterization and humour of a Robert Rodi book, but with the sex left in that Rodi always cut. All the story lines are interesting, you'll be quickly turning the pages, and this can be hard to do with a large cast of all similar gay men. Some gay books you lose track of who's who, and while Rechy isn't perfect here, its a solid 9 out of 10.
The book has some thought provoking moments, like this meditation on gay sex culture that reminded me of the resonance of The Normal Heart:
"This is all there is - just sex and more sex and still more sex. That's all God gave only us - and to no one else - to compensate for all the shit they keep throwing at us. It's the only thing that blocks it all out. That's all some of us have. When that's gone - for some of us, there will be nothing."
Again well written, I read this on a gay vacation which was the perfect time for this book. Slight marks off for not being quite as good as City, and also for the last page, the last four paragraphs really which I found confusing. If someone could message me and fill me in on the meaning there I would appreciate it. Did he die? Why the blood? Was the Christ real? Did he screw him? To understand everything but the very very end I found frustrating. Still book is highly recommended.
This book is a snapshot of gay culture in 1982, when the first whispers of AIDS were starting. I expected the book to eventually step into the AIDS crisis but it never does, making allusions to it but never going there outright. The book is more a day or a few days set in LA as the Sant'Anas blow a hot wind of change.
Rechy has a gift for being sex-positive with great characterization and still evoking feeling and meaning. I think there things are all necessary for good gay fiction and few authors can manage all three.
Rechy examines the gay culture of the early 1980's with several elements still resonating now. A wide cast of characters really try to include everyone, we see porn stars, gym bunnies, ultra macho daddies and past-it aunties.
"I accept those things, Thomas, the three curses in the gay world - unattractive, old, and fat. I've been spared the fourth curse, the curse of a small dick, but that's not a blessing for me because no one notices."
I loved the scenes at the porn shoot, to me this had the ultra vivid characterization and humour of a Robert Rodi book, but with the sex left in that Rodi always cut. All the story lines are interesting, you'll be quickly turning the pages, and this can be hard to do with a large cast of all similar gay men. Some gay books you lose track of who's who, and while Rechy isn't perfect here, its a solid 9 out of 10.
The book has some thought provoking moments, like this meditation on gay sex culture that reminded me of the resonance of The Normal Heart:
"This is all there is - just sex and more sex and still more sex. That's all God gave only us - and to no one else - to compensate for all the shit they keep throwing at us. It's the only thing that blocks it all out. That's all some of us have. When that's gone - for some of us, there will be nothing."
Again well written, I read this on a gay vacation which was the perfect time for this book. Slight marks off for not being quite as good as City, and also for the last page, the last four paragraphs really which I found confusing. If someone could message me and fill me in on the meaning there I would appreciate it. Did he die? Why the blood? Was the Christ real? Did he screw him? To understand everything but the very very end I found frustrating. Still book is highly recommended.
April 29, 2011
This is tricky to put a rating on because i spent most of my time reading this book not liking it. The characters seem more like types or viewpoints than people: their inner monologues are often similar and interchangable, their arcs are small and none of them are really sympathetic. Parts of the story are frankly unbelievable, sections of the writing are clunky and uneven and some of the narrative is repetitive to the point of irritation. (Maybe that's the point, but come on!!!!) And, honestly, the pornographic sections are the best writtenBut I kept on reading it. The momentum increases and point become more apparent. And the climax (so to speak) contains many surprises. I wound up totally getting what the author was saying, his viewpoint on what gay culture was like on the eve of the AIDS epidemic and how it compares to gay culture now--how the "community" is still rampant with ageism, racism and men are as enslaved to their sex drives as ever. A sharper character base and a bigger arc would have made this truly shattering. Though the set up seems contrived at times, it's completely honest in its brutality and its message.
September 5, 2014
Rechy's work to me is the epitome of proper gay literature. His work is gritty, profane and immensely engaging. I live for this man's prose since I first discovered him as a young boy at the tender and impressionable age of 16 (and this was many moons ago).
Coming of the Night hold a very high place on my reading shelf (both physically and on my e-reader). If you've never read this man's work, do yourself a favor and do it - now!
It was because of his books (and Coming was certainly no different) that I know I survived the heady and scary days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. HIs writing was so profoundly felt by me that I was vicariously living it through his works rather than over indulge in areas that might have led me down to my own demise. I don't say that lightly. I know within my heart of hearts, Rechy's work kept me safe, kept me sane. It is his level of writing I aspire to. Nothing short of brilliance.
Coming of the Night hold a very high place on my reading shelf (both physically and on my e-reader). If you've never read this man's work, do yourself a favor and do it - now!
It was because of his books (and Coming was certainly no different) that I know I survived the heady and scary days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. HIs writing was so profoundly felt by me that I was vicariously living it through his works rather than over indulge in areas that might have led me down to my own demise. I don't say that lightly. I know within my heart of hearts, Rechy's work kept me safe, kept me sane. It is his level of writing I aspire to. Nothing short of brilliance.
January 18, 2014
The Coming of the Night is literature of the first order. Structure feeding the narrative, tight personal narration moving with a nearly anonymous shifting of perspective, poetry both delicious and offensive, this novel captures a crystal unique moment in the history of interpersonal emotions. It is a masterpiece.
May 4, 2008
DNF Not as engaging as his other novels; text is rather forced
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews