American novelist whose semiautobiographical works explore the worlds of sexual and social outsiders and occasionally draw on his Mexican-American heritage.

A graduate of Texas Western College, Rechy also studied at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He taught creative writing at Occidental College, the University of Southern California, and the University of California at Los Angeles.

In City of Night (1963), his first and best-received novel, a young man working as a homosexual (homosexuality) hustler makes his way to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Rechy followed with Numbers (1967) and This Day's Death (1969), both of which deal with obsession and identity. The Vampires (1971) concerns the nature of evil, and The Fourth Angel (1972) records the adventures of four thrill-seeking adolescents. The nonfictional The Sexual Outlaw (1977) is Rechy's “prose documentary” of three days and nights in the sexual underground. In The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gómez (1991), set in the barrio of Los Angeles, Rechy makes use of the techniques of magic realism. His other novels include Rushes (1979), Bodies and Souls (1983), Marilyn's Daughter (1988), Our Lady of Babylon (1996), and The Coming of the Night (1999).