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About My Life and the Kept Woman: A Memoir
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Manufacturer: Grove Press
Author: John Rechy
Publisher: Grove Press
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $11.20
You Save: $ 2.80 ( 20% )
Not yet published
Manufacturer: Grove Press
Author: John Rechy
Publisher: Grove Press
Average Customer Rating:
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About My Life and the Kept Woman: A Memoir Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780802144041
ISBN: 0802144047
Label: Grove Press
Manufacturer: Grove Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2009-03-03
Publisher: Grove Press
Studio: Grove Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780802144041
ISBN: 0802144047
Label: Grove Press
Manufacturer: Grove Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2009-03-03
Publisher: Grove Press
Studio: Grove Press
Editorial Review of About My Life and the Kept Woman: A Memoir
Gore Vidal has hailed John Rechy as “one of the few original American writers of the last century,” and Michael Cunningham has called him an author “whose life is almost as interesting, and meaningful, as his work.” Rechy’s long-awaited memoir,About My Life and the Kept Woman, is the author’s first open treatment of his life—and a testament to the power of pride and self-acceptance. Raised Mexican-American in El Paso, Texas, at a time when Latino children were routinely segregated, Rechy was often assumed to be Anglo because of his light skin, and had his name “changed” for him by a teacher, from Juan to John. As he grew older—and as his fascination with the memory of a notorious kept woman in his childhood deepened—Rechy became aware that his differences lay not just in his heritage, but in his sexuality. A moving, powerful story of a life that bears witness to some of the most riotous changes of the past century,About My Life and the Kept Woman is as much a portrait of intolerance as of an individual who defied it to forge his own path.
Customer Reviews of About My Life and the Kept Woman: A Memoir
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Excellent
Review: John Rechy is an excellent writer and wrote a wonderful book. I'm planning on reading several of his fiction books now. I met him once many years ago.
Quite an interesting life he's led. I just don't completely understand how he seemed to go from a rather naive (or inexperienced) man into the hustling mode. It just seemed to happen like flipping a switch. I kept wondering if that is exactly how it happened. And I wonder why he hasn't ever seemed interested in intimacy. I'm wondering if the autobiography by Casillo is worth reading too or if it would be redundant.
None the less, he is a wonderful writer, very, very captivating and I read it in 4 days much to my dismay because when a book is as wonderful as this one was, I'd like it to be a 700 pager!!!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Great Read, but I have a few questions
Review: I read City of Night over 4 decades ago and was relieved to learn that John Rechy has survived his dangerous life style and has written this marvelous memoir. Rechy names many famous people, but for others he uses a fictional name. Perfectly understandable if he wants to protect the confidentiality of people who are still alive, but he probably should let us know when he does this. Apparently, Burt Schwartz is Herb Caine. But, was his wife Isabel Franklin? Was the kept woman of de Leon, Marisa Guzman?
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: FULL OF SPICE
Review: The world of John Rechy comes alive in this luminous memoir.
About my life and the kept woman is the remarkable adventure of a man choosing a life-so colorful-on the strength of his mind and will. It takes skill to depict,as Mr Rechy has done, a work so imaginitive, dramatic and seductive.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Soniarita on Rechy's "About My Life and the Kept Woman"
Review: John Rechy's new book, "About My Life and the Kept Woman," although more realistic than his past work, is hundred percent Rechy. He takes you by the hand and with passion and warmth, leads you into his life. Indeed, with great warmth and intimacy. Reading the book, you feel you're getting to know him and despite the struggles, putdowns and unabashed prejudice he has experienced, you smile in he sharing and say, "Yes, this is John Rechy."
As we read, we are led from the wild exhilaration and dangers of street hustling to the life-giving sweetness of his mother's arms, his sister's food and stories, his brothers' unconditional support. We are led from Rechysque descriptions of special childhood moments in the El Paso of his youth to special, more mature moments in New York and Los Angeles. We are led through memories of two early loves, one for a girl who recreates herself into a new person,the other for "Marisa Guzman, the kept woman of Mexican politician Augusto de Leon," the woman needled and threaded through Rechy's memory.
The last sentence in the book proclaims Ms. Guzman's pride in who she is despite years of social disapproval. John Rechy, despite the prejudice and judgement he has experienced, exhibits the same fierce pride in who he is and from whence he came. He is his own Pirandello. Soniarita Lazar
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Rechy remembers
Review: As a preface to his compelling new memoir, El Paso native John Rechy offers a two-line caveat:
"This is not what happened; it is what is remembered. Its sequence is the sequence of recollection."
In this day of scandalously false memoirs, it is certainly refreshing to read such words. But Rechy's story is, by now, well known to those who have read his critically acclaimed 1963 autobiographical novel, "City of Night," which caused a literary sensation in part because of its subject matter: male prostitution, or hustling, as Rechy calls it.
In the new book, "About My Life and the Kept Woman" (Grove Press, $24 hardcover), Rechy revisits many of the events that wound up in that first novel and in subsequent novels -- but with an overarching theme to assist him in explaining decisions that led to a seemingly contradictory life of literature and sex-for-hire.
That theme is the "kept woman" of the title, the glamorous Marisa Guzman, mistress of the rich and powerful Mexican politician Augusto de Leon. It seems that Guzman's younger brother was engaged to Rechy's sister, Olga. Guzman had "conveyed her intention to travel from Mexico City and return to El Paso to attend her younger brother's wedding, thus challenging (her father), who had banished her years ago."
Intrigued by this alluring outsider, the young Rechy could barely contain himself when he caught a glimpse of the kept woman at the wedding reception. Throughout his memoir, Rechy repeatedly returns to this image of Guzman's defiant yet elegant appearance in the midst of those who were both fascinated and repulsed by her unashamed disregard for social norms.
Rechy struggled with his own outsider status, arising, in large part, from a mixed heritage as the son of a Mexican mother and a half-Scottish father.
Moreover, growing up in El Paso during the Depression and World War II, Rechy's budding sexuality and precocious literary tastes put him at odds with the socially conservative mainstream.
Rechy enlisted during the Korean conflict, which allowed him to travel in Europe while avoiding actual combat. After a two-year stint, he began his wanderings (and hustling) in New York, New Orleans and Los Angeles. But he kept alive the desire to express himself through the written word, a desire he possessed from a young age. He eventually wrote fictionalized accounts of his life as a hustler that appeared in a small but prestigious literary journal. These shockingly honest stories resulted in his first book deal.
In the memoir, Rechy tries to explain why he became a hustler. At one point, he turns to a vague and uncertain memory of sexual abuse at the hands of his father and father's male friends. But he pulls back and is unwilling (or more likely, unable) to give a definite justification.
As Rechy became more famous, he encountered other luminaries including, in one hilarious passage, the beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who told Rechy to "relax, take your clothes off." "Why?" asked Rechy. Ginsberg answered: "Because you said you'd never grow undesirable. I hope that is true, really. For now, I want to see your body when I know it's beautiful -- and then it will be so forever in my memory." Rechy declined to disrobe.
As one reads this book, Rechy's warning that his memoir "is not what happened; it is what is remembered" often comes to mind. Whether each word is the unvarnished truth is of no matter: Rechy's life has been remarkable by any standard.
With 45 years of publishing both fiction and nonfiction under his belt, Rechy continues to create memorable and vital works of literature that honestly explore the importance of creating one's own destiny.
Marisa Guzman would be proud.
[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]
Review Summary: Excellent
Review: John Rechy is an excellent writer and wrote a wonderful book. I'm planning on reading several of his fiction books now. I met him once many years ago.
Quite an interesting life he's led. I just don't completely understand how he seemed to go from a rather naive (or inexperienced) man into the hustling mode. It just seemed to happen like flipping a switch. I kept wondering if that is exactly how it happened. And I wonder why he hasn't ever seemed interested in intimacy. I'm wondering if the autobiography by Casillo is worth reading too or if it would be redundant.
None the less, he is a wonderful writer, very, very captivating and I read it in 4 days much to my dismay because when a book is as wonderful as this one was, I'd like it to be a 700 pager!!!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Great Read, but I have a few questions
Review: I read City of Night over 4 decades ago and was relieved to learn that John Rechy has survived his dangerous life style and has written this marvelous memoir. Rechy names many famous people, but for others he uses a fictional name. Perfectly understandable if he wants to protect the confidentiality of people who are still alive, but he probably should let us know when he does this. Apparently, Burt Schwartz is Herb Caine. But, was his wife Isabel Franklin? Was the kept woman of de Leon, Marisa Guzman?
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: FULL OF SPICE
Review: The world of John Rechy comes alive in this luminous memoir.
About my life and the kept woman is the remarkable adventure of a man choosing a life-so colorful-on the strength of his mind and will. It takes skill to depict,as Mr Rechy has done, a work so imaginitive, dramatic and seductive.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Soniarita on Rechy's "About My Life and the Kept Woman"
Review: John Rechy's new book, "About My Life and the Kept Woman," although more realistic than his past work, is hundred percent Rechy. He takes you by the hand and with passion and warmth, leads you into his life. Indeed, with great warmth and intimacy. Reading the book, you feel you're getting to know him and despite the struggles, putdowns and unabashed prejudice he has experienced, you smile in he sharing and say, "Yes, this is John Rechy."
As we read, we are led from the wild exhilaration and dangers of street hustling to the life-giving sweetness of his mother's arms, his sister's food and stories, his brothers' unconditional support. We are led from Rechysque descriptions of special childhood moments in the El Paso of his youth to special, more mature moments in New York and Los Angeles. We are led through memories of two early loves, one for a girl who recreates herself into a new person,the other for "Marisa Guzman, the kept woman of Mexican politician Augusto de Leon," the woman needled and threaded through Rechy's memory.
The last sentence in the book proclaims Ms. Guzman's pride in who she is despite years of social disapproval. John Rechy, despite the prejudice and judgement he has experienced, exhibits the same fierce pride in who he is and from whence he came. He is his own Pirandello. Soniarita Lazar
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Rechy remembers
Review: As a preface to his compelling new memoir, El Paso native John Rechy offers a two-line caveat:
"This is not what happened; it is what is remembered. Its sequence is the sequence of recollection."
In this day of scandalously false memoirs, it is certainly refreshing to read such words. But Rechy's story is, by now, well known to those who have read his critically acclaimed 1963 autobiographical novel, "City of Night," which caused a literary sensation in part because of its subject matter: male prostitution, or hustling, as Rechy calls it.
In the new book, "About My Life and the Kept Woman" (Grove Press, $24 hardcover), Rechy revisits many of the events that wound up in that first novel and in subsequent novels -- but with an overarching theme to assist him in explaining decisions that led to a seemingly contradictory life of literature and sex-for-hire.
That theme is the "kept woman" of the title, the glamorous Marisa Guzman, mistress of the rich and powerful Mexican politician Augusto de Leon. It seems that Guzman's younger brother was engaged to Rechy's sister, Olga. Guzman had "conveyed her intention to travel from Mexico City and return to El Paso to attend her younger brother's wedding, thus challenging (her father), who had banished her years ago."
Intrigued by this alluring outsider, the young Rechy could barely contain himself when he caught a glimpse of the kept woman at the wedding reception. Throughout his memoir, Rechy repeatedly returns to this image of Guzman's defiant yet elegant appearance in the midst of those who were both fascinated and repulsed by her unashamed disregard for social norms.
Rechy struggled with his own outsider status, arising, in large part, from a mixed heritage as the son of a Mexican mother and a half-Scottish father.
Moreover, growing up in El Paso during the Depression and World War II, Rechy's budding sexuality and precocious literary tastes put him at odds with the socially conservative mainstream.
Rechy enlisted during the Korean conflict, which allowed him to travel in Europe while avoiding actual combat. After a two-year stint, he began his wanderings (and hustling) in New York, New Orleans and Los Angeles. But he kept alive the desire to express himself through the written word, a desire he possessed from a young age. He eventually wrote fictionalized accounts of his life as a hustler that appeared in a small but prestigious literary journal. These shockingly honest stories resulted in his first book deal.
In the memoir, Rechy tries to explain why he became a hustler. At one point, he turns to a vague and uncertain memory of sexual abuse at the hands of his father and father's male friends. But he pulls back and is unwilling (or more likely, unable) to give a definite justification.
As Rechy became more famous, he encountered other luminaries including, in one hilarious passage, the beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who told Rechy to "relax, take your clothes off." "Why?" asked Rechy. Ginsberg answered: "Because you said you'd never grow undesirable. I hope that is true, really. For now, I want to see your body when I know it's beautiful -- and then it will be so forever in my memory." Rechy declined to disrobe.
As one reads this book, Rechy's warning that his memoir "is not what happened; it is what is remembered" often comes to mind. Whether each word is the unvarnished truth is of no matter: Rechy's life has been remarkable by any standard.
With 45 years of publishing both fiction and nonfiction under his belt, Rechy continues to create memorable and vital works of literature that honestly explore the importance of creating one's own destiny.
Marisa Guzman would be proud.
[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]