Rechy, John

City of Night

New York, NY: Grove Press, Inc., 1963. First Edition. Hardcover. "This is a novel about America. It is a novel about loneliness, about love and the ceaseless, furtive search for love. Set in the seamy, neon-lighted world of honky-tonk USA- Times Square in New York, Pershing Square in Los Angeles, Hollywood Boulevard, and the French Quarter of New Orleans- and dealing with a little-known world of hidden sex, City of Night represents a radical departure from all other novels of this kind. It is not lurid or defensive; it treats its subject squarely and forthrightly, revealing many facets of this subculture in a way they have probably never been revealed before, even in the novels of Jean Genet. The result is one of the most important novels of recent years." (from front flap) The debut novel by John Rechy, the award-winning American novelist, memoirist & critic who pioneered writing on LGBT themes & characters. The lonely, unnamed protagonist-narrator roams the mean, nocturnal streets which were the pre-Stonewall setting of then-clandestine male hustlers & their closeted gay clients. This work slightly precedes & belongs on the collector's shelf alongside similar contemporary classics including Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964, see our item No. 4453) & James Leo Herlihy's Midnight Cowboy (1965). An exemplary production of Barney Rosset's brave & innovative Grove Press, which championed many daring, now-venerable authors including Rechy, William S. Burroughs, Genet, Henry Miller, Selby et al. Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket, first edition, first printing as stated on copyright page. With evocative image on front of dust jacket interestingly photographed by Richard Seaver, Rosset's co-editor & later a publisher in his own right of WSB & others. The foundational collectible in the Rechy canon, in its rarest original form. Book in near-fine condition with mild rubbing & faint spotting to black-cloth front, back covers & spine; slight wear, fading & a few tiny bumps at edges & corners of same; several vertical wave-bumps across spine (not substantially effecting bright & intact silver letters & graphics thereon); one small area of sliverish spot-staining at lower right margin of blank front cover; mild rubbing, browning, scratching & occasional spotting to side & lower edges of text block; moderate fading, spot-staining & scratching to black-dyed upper edge of same. Interior fine with mild browning, sparse spotting to blank paste-downs & endpapers; a hint of browning mostly at blank margins/ edges of some page leaves; very small creases, tiny bumps at upper corners of some of same. Dust jacket relatively near-fine with mild rubbing, scratching, faint creasing & occasional spotting to front, back covers, spine & flaps; mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at thin edges & corners of same incl. short, closed tear at upper edge of front cover & chips with slight loss of paper at upper spine-edge & corners (both with small tape repairs at blank inner jacket); original price of $5.95 near upper right corner of front flap crossed-out (but still quite visible) in blue ink with lesser price hand-written in same ink below. Near Fine / Near Fine. [Item #4556]

Price: $65.00