City of Night by John Rechy

The taboo-busting 1960s classic that gave voice to a hidden subculture.
 
Bold and inventive in style, City of Night is the groundbreaking 1960s novel about male prostitution. Rechy is unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling 'youngman' and his search for self-knowledge among the other denizens of his neon-lit world. As the narrator moves from Texas to Times Square and then on to the French Quarter of New Orleans, Rechy delivers a portrait of the edges of America that has lost none of its power.

On his travels, the nameless narrator meets a collection of unforgettable characters, from vice cops to guilt-ridden married men eaten up by desire, to Lance O'Hara, once Hollywood's biggest star. Rechy describes this world with candour and understanding in a prose that is highly personal and vividly descriptive and still potently explicit. City of Night reamains groundbreaking for its stream-of-consciousness account of sex work and itinerancy. An American classic! First published 1963. John Rechy's introduction is from 1984. 
 
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'A classic American novel.' - Edmund White 
 
'A rare and and beautiful recklessness.' - James Baldwin 
 
'In his first novel, City of Night, John Echy achieved what most authors strive for their entire career. A book that will last.' - LA Review of Books