This Day's Death

by John Rechy

"It was like viewing a geometric progression in reverse; he saw options as they narrowed: at which stage, at which phase, at which time, at which place he could have still Escaped the building trap: this step taken, that one not, another taken in a different direction: sixteen choices, then four, only two, and finally--..." This Day's Death -- John Rechy

With this funneling vision, Jim Girard, the main character of "This Day's Death," sees his life wrestled free of his control and left to channel off into the twin nightmares of hovering death and silent injustice that borders his life. To one side is his aged mother, with whom he lives in Texas, sharing with her the twilight existence of chronic undefined illness; an illness Jim comes to view as a "war" between mother and child, complete with skirmishes based on the fear of lost love and death. On the other side stands a trial in Los Angeles on a charge that exposes Jim to the depths and intricacies of society's twisted conceptions of justice and privacy.

Between these two destructive poles, Jim strives to keep what is left of his life--his girl, his job, his future as an aspiring law student--free of the knowledge and implications of the trial and also unscathed by the corrosive attention that his mothers illness demands of him.

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

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

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

definitely feels like a lesser book than City of Night, this mostly restrains the modernist structure and elaborate prose of that earlier work for a much more conventional story about a young man trapped between the suffocating presence of his sick mother and the grindingly slow process of the court system. by no means bad and rechy's writing is skilful, but i can see why this one hasn't been reprinted since it first came out.

[Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this book when you are in the mood for anger and stress. I unfortunately read it around Thanksgiving and so it was bad timing on my part.
I can read a Rechy book about once every couple of years due to feeling completely over-sexed after reading them and I was kind of in the mood for such a thing... however this time there was no over-sexed characters, just miserable lives. This story involves a man already stressed by life having one more horrible episode piled on top of it all. Just misery and sorrow mixed with some cop-hating events. I didn't enjoy this book because there was nothing to enjoy: not a person, scene or situation that wanted me to feel anything other than pain and suffering. Perhaps some readers will find the significance in the historical gay cruising scenes and being busted for it, but I can't say I really felt sorry for anyone in the story because there was nothing to like about them from the beginning. There is nothing likable about anyone. You be the judge.