The Fourth Angel

by John Rechy

From the New York Times–bestselling author of City of a “powerful work that may very well be Rechy’s best” (Kirkus Reviews).  Compelling and ferociously relevant, The Fourth Angel is the story of four teenagers playing deadly games with drugs, sex, and one another. Behind a facade of tough cynicism, on a raging search for kicks, they explore the hot, dusty city, bent on trouble. There are three “angels”—Shell, Cob, and Manny—and their recruit Jerry, who becomes the fourth.   Hovering in that uncertain limbo between childhood and adulthood, the four angels maintain a precarious balance among themselves and with the outside world. Each one is today’s street still tinged with innocence and capable of beauty, but at the same time, full of rage and violence, attempting to conceal an ugly past.  Praise for John Rechy   “Rechy shows great comic and tragic talent. He is truly a gifted novelist.” —Christopher Isherwood, author and playwright   “His tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own, and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful recklessness. He tells the truth, and tells it with such passion that we are forced to share in the life he conveys. This is a most humbling and liberating achievement.” —James Baldwin, novelist, playwright, and activist   “Fresh, beautiful, totally courageous and totally cool, passionate . . . His uncompromising honesty as a gay writer has provoked as much fear as admiration . . . John Rechy doesn’t fit into categories. He transcends them. His individual vision is unique, perfect, loving and strong.” —Carolyn See, author of Hard Luck and Good Times in America

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Gay, Queer, Gay Fiction

161 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

John Rechy is an American author, the child of a Scottish father and a Mexican-American mother. In his novels he has written extensively about homosexual culture in Los Angeles and wider America, and is among the pioneers of modern LGBT literature. Drawing on his own background, he has also contributed to Chicano literature, especially with his novel The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, which is taught in several Chicano literature courses in the United States. His work has often faced censorship due to its sexual content, particularly (but not solely) in the 1960s and 1970s, but books such as City of Night have been best sellers, and he has many literary admirers.

Reviews

[Ben Manners · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boy do I not like this style of writing (re: overwritten; bad?) That it’s written in the present tense (because “this Book is like Happening right Now, maan”) just made it more of a slog.
A 158 page book about 1970s teenage delinquents sounded like something I’d breeze through, but (partly because of naturally burning out on reading lately) it ended up taking me two weeks to read.

So often it just felt like reading serviceable 70s YA fiction, but with decidedly non-YA content, as if to propose that that’s enough to make this all more profound. I’d go easier on it if it wasn’t for the writing. As for the dialogue, it’s not like I can’t look past dated slang, but so much of it was simply clunky.

It wasn’t all bad though. I like the overarching point Rechy is making about the inclination of people who have been hurt, traumatized – especially kids – to try to harden themselves to the world. That bumped it up to 3 stars for me. Also this writing style was easier to tolerate, and possibly more effective, during the extended acid-trip sequences.

I haven’t read City Of Night and still plan to, I just hope there’s less of the hamfisted adjective-clogging throughout The Fourth Angel.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The toughest book about teenagers ever written. A pack of outcast teens dare each other to play vicious games with strangers they brutalize and degrade in a haunted house. The sexual lines are crossed and double-crossed by them.
John Rechy outdid "City of Night" with this one, and that's saying a Hell of a lot!

[Iv y · Rating 3 out of 5]

im not sure why i didn’t like this as much as after the blue hour, maybe because of the overly prolix poetic style with ZOOM! and OO-EE! but i like the Outasite!s and Diggit, man… and the crazy bumming acid trip world of insanity and their cold lost worlds (Cob’s world:) and their names Jerry and Michelle. john rechy seems to like repetition which scares me sometimes (clowns clawing at glass beads; Even the severed branch regrows! Resurrection!) but i’m getting used to it - still want to read more !!!

passage:

Manny is the first to get off. A smile blesses his face as he welcomes the world of colours, pulsing music. He laughs uncontrollably. ‘My old lady…’ He can’t stop laughing. ‘My old lady, man… Diggit, I haven’t been home since yesterday morning. I bet she thinks I turned myself in to the J.D, home, man! …I hope… I hope she misses the hell out of me!’

Shell too is getting off, her beauty radiates the joy of the drug. And it’s releasing the child in Cob. In wonder, he’s studying the shattered images of a kaleidoscope. Now he passes it to Shell, and then he smiled warmly at Jerry. ‘Like…’ Cob begins uncertainly. ‘Like here we are, man.’

[James Garman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a story about teenagers using drugs and anger to deal with life. Jerry has recently lost his mother to death and finds himself mixed up with Shell, Cob and Manny on a two-three day binge of drug abuse and fairly brutal interactions with some people they run across.

It finally ends in an explosion of anger and emotional release.

John Rechy is an author known to me for his writing about the gay society of the 1970s; the more unstructured and perhaps even wild version that existed before HIV, but he takes a bit of a different look at another demographic, although it is not totally free of gay inference.

It is not exactly fine literature, and I read it more because I wanted to check out some of his work again after almost 40 years from the days when his writing was so relevant to my personal life. This one was not as relevant, never was, as some of the others, but it did deal with dysfunctional relationships (family) which I find of interest also.

[OGEE Substack · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was SO. FUCKIN. GAY. kid

[John Rimbaud · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gang of four alienated teens raise cain all over El Paso, Texas in this, one of Rechy's earlier novels. The teens--a jaded rich girl; her two male friends; and the "fourth angel" who joins them, a young man recovering from his mother's death--turn to drugs and a little bit of the old ultraviolence to block out the pain of their lives.

As an examination of troubled youth, this novel sometimes plunges into the kind of cliches I associate with bad JD movies (emotionally wounded kids rebelling against hypocritical society, etc., etc.). But Rechy manages to create four vivid, distinct characters here; they're more complex than the street-corner nihilists they proclaim themselves to be--and that's exactly the point. Tight prose and a quick pace are additional assets. Though not as impressive as "City of Night," it's a readable book that hasn't dated much (except for the occasional "far out!" dialogue) since its initial publication in 1972, whereas Bret Easton Ellis' vaguely similar "Less Than Zero" feels lost in the '80s. It's worth reading.

[Tom Leland · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I remove my fondness of reading about a meaningful time for me (adolescence during the dark
turn-of-the 1970s period), and probably the most accurate literary description of a hallucinogenic trip that I've read, there is merit here but I found it somewhat tiresome to read. Further, the author, a homosexual, shows a real lack of understanding of the mind of a thoroughly straight male teen.

Rechy attempts to describe ongoing realities of all four characters, which can only be done spottily -- that's one of the weaknesses for me. I'd rather we were inside one character's head, and that he would've trusted us to discern the others' realities through that filter; better yet, make his points through one character and not try to be so ambitious.

[Adam Dunn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor. Might be okay for a teenager, possibly an LGBT teenager, but not so much there for adults.
Four friends mess with people psychologically and hitchhike to a hippie commune by the river while on an acid trip. The commune was probably the best part.
Someone I know once said something about reflecting on the lives of teenagers is as easy as depressing fish in a barrel. No one here stands out as likeable or has an emotion anyone after 19 would care about and the story is uncomfortable and really goes nowhere.

[Roof Beam Reader (Adam) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good. Felt like it might have been better as a novella. Certainly interesting look at drug culture, abuse, and sexuality.