After the Blue Hour by John Rechy, Grove Press; $25
A small, solitary, tree-populated island squats in a Cerulean blue sea at dusk on the cover of John Rechy's new novel, After the Blue Hour. It is deceptively serene and inviting, drawing unknowing readers into a boldly complex drama not unlike others in the Mexican American author's oeuvre. It also resembles the book that put his name on the tongues of gay readers back in 1963 when, at 32, Rechy's controversial debut City of Night arrived from the same publisher.
By labeling this book "true fiction" on the title page, Rechy opens up the story to the scrutiny of memoir. He forces the reader to ponder whether or not the events of the novel actually happened to him. But this speculation only heightens the tension in a novel full of interpersonal intrigue and sexual dynamics.
The narrator is named John Rechy, a writer whose titillating short stories have attracted the attention of an island dweller named Paul Wagner, who writes a fan letter inviting the author to visit his island retreat for the summer. It is 1960, and Rechy, a burned out 20something living in Los Angeles, has found himself adrift in the Hollywood slut shuffle, the "entanglement of anonymous sexual encounters that only seldom extended even into morning, a situation I welcomed and guarded."
Rechy arrives on the island and is delivered into the care of this handsome, late-30s, younger-than-imagined host: a stranger and a desperate distraction that seems like the perfect escape for a young man with sex on the brain.
History proves that hasty, spontaneous decision-making can prove a recipe for disaster. In this case, Rechy has his curiosity piqued, but more stimulation and treachery follow. He is introduced to the man's mistress Sonya and his oddly coercive son Constantine ("Stanty"), 14, and after several afternoons spent lounging on the deck of Paul's rustic house, sometimes in the harsh heat of day and other times basking in the "few seconds of blue light between dusk and night," the precarious "truths" begin to seep into this carefully manipulated arrangement.
It is soon revealed that Paul likes to play increasingly dangerous sexual games. His yard is populated by eerie dark iron figures, and he has an impressively "assertive" endowment that seems to be the focus in these games. His nefarious intentions draw Rechy in with a brutal yank rather than a playful nudge.
It is up to readers to determine if this serpentine story is derived from Rechy's past or from his imagination. At 85, Rechy's gift for storytelling and erotic embellishment shows no signs of wear-and-tear. For readers who enjoy their gay novels provocative, unabashedly sexual, and unafraid to step outside of the bounds of traditional fiction, this is amazing news. Mysterious, intriguing, and brashly amatory, Rechy's take on gamesmanship, power, domination, and deception is a welcome return to form for the author and a wild ride indeed.