---
product_id: 4585270
title: "City of Night"
brand: "john rechy"
price: "S$44"
currency: SGD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.sg/products/4585270-city-of-night
store_origin: SG
region: Singapore
---

# City of Night

**Brand:** john rechy
**Price:** S$44
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** City of Night by john rechy
- **How much does it cost?** S$44 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sg](https://www.desertcart.sg/products/4585270-city-of-night)

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- john rechy enthusiasts

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## Description

City of Night

## Images

![City of Night - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5162OLgd+mL.jpg)
![City of Night - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51wYT3E0bTL.jpg)
![City of Night - Image 3](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41O7ntJEiKL.jpg)
![City of Night - Image 4](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/416eMkegE0L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Back to my first weeks in New York, AD 1968?
  

*by O***N on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 4, 2014*

Surprisingly, John Rechy, three years older than I, is still alive. His 1967 book 'Numbers' played an essential albeit indirect role in my gay life in New York City that started one Saturday afternoon in 1968 at the long defunct Bleecker Street movie house.Strange grammar like `Youngman' as a one word - I remember it well.This is, of course, a review, not my personal story. Fortunately, I did not have to depend (in 1968) on street hustlers for `all my needs', that came many years later.Rechy became, I understand, lid of superannuated fake hustler in LA and was quite proud of - pretending being properly stupid, almost illiterate, but no longer for the money.Let just say that my current former hustler (he sells now light bulbs although his body is not a total disaster at the age of 52) never read and will never read any book. He, however, reads a lot of newspapers online - I have to supply his computers, of course. As long, that is, as they report from Ireland and on soccer.The variety of gay lives may be more remarkable than the variety of straight lives and we are different. But what I know about straight sex? Very little.Just one last comment. I used to be a Catholic till I reached the age of 12. To make a statement on a very 'high' level, I just want to say the following.Western culture is a curious mix of Abrahamic traditions (Leviticus 20 can be crudely translate as 'kill the queer')  and much nicer Greco-Roman traditions. They had their handsome and bisexual (??) gods and goddesses.Since the Greeks did not have any mechanical means to describe their way of life, I can only fantasize about their kids in their 'gymnasiums', the schools were they ran naked.I can imagine that not only mythical gods but these (exclusively male?) kids did their stuff with intensity matched only by Rechy in this book and the "Numbers'.Rechy probably did for us gay people what was done long time ago for the straights in a  a few their pioneering books.Four stars only because I liked the 'Numbers' better - bit simpler and just happened to affect my life here in the US more profoundly.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Hustler
  

*by J***N on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 24, 2020*

In this classic of gay literature (first published in 1963), Rechy—who worked as a hustler himself for years prior to its publication as well as after—captures the spectrum of experience (I resist calling it emotion) that constituted queer life in the decades before Stonewall.The book is more of a peripatetic collection of vignettes and verbal tableaux than an actual novel. Rechy’s story lacks a conventional plot structure, and the characters are developed only to the extent that their brief appearance in the narrative will allow. Although no character (other than the narrator) sticks around very long, many are nevertheless quite memorable. Drawing on his own experience, Rechy uses exquisite detail and a perceptive ear for authentic dialogue to sketch distinct, almost allegorical characters. Flamboyant queens, butch hustlers, desperate scores, gruff bartenders, and reckless partiers populate the book’s many locales—New York City, Los Angeles, Hollywood, San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans.Despite their differing appearances and motives, every character—and most notably Rechy’s unnamed hustler narrator—experiences a profound sadness borne of loneliness, which is the theme that unites every scene in the book to every other. Every human connection between characters is predicated on physical contact (often sexual)—and every connection evaporates at the first sign of intimacy or emotion. Desire—or, more precisely, the desire to be desired—always conquers love in Rechy’s world.Nearly 500 pages in length (this edition includes Rechy’s Introduction, an Afterword, and an interview with the author), “City of Night” is required—and worthwhile—reading for anyone interested in queer American literature.

### ⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A little tiresome by modern standards
  

*by R***F on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 17, 2023*

I’m sure in the early ‘60s, this book was titillating and subversive. In 2023, it becomes tiresome. The shock sex and prostitution aren’t really that interesting today, so there’s not a lot to hold your attention. Rechy tries his hand at some trite literary tricks (for example, not using punctuation that he feels his uneducated narrator wouldn’t have used), but those just make it more difficult to read, without the intended effect. Moreover, the whole novel is ponderous and self-conscious.

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*Product available on Desertcart Singapore*
*Store origin: SG*
*Last updated: 2026-03-07*