Volume 55, Number 5 · April 3, 2008
The Making of John Rechy
By Edmund White
About My Life and the Kept Woman: A Memoir
by John Rechy
Grove, 356 pp., $24.00
John Rechy's latest book is a memoir that reads like a novel, complete with cliff-hanging chapter conclusions, long dialogue scenes, a regularly repeating leitmotif (of a mysterious, glamorous woman), and a clear progression of accumulated effect. Fair enough, since he's stated that he believes there's something fictionalized about any memory. And he has dealt with many of the subjects in this book in previous novels. Rechy has said that the autobiographer is the biggest liar for claiming, 'This is exactly how it happened.' The biographer is on the next level down of lying for arguing, 'I am capable of knowing another's life.' The most honest writer is the novelist, who says, 'This is a lie, a fiction, but I'm going to try like hell to make you believe it's true.'
Review, 3452 words
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