The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens
by John RechyGrove Press, 324 pp., $24
With his latest novel, The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens, John Rechy has proven himself to be one of the most versatile and ambitious novelists around. The writer made his splashy debut on the literary scene some 40 years ago with City of Night, the largely autobiographical tale of a young male hustler turning tricks across the USA, starting out in Rechy’s hometown of El Paso. Over the years, Rechy (who continued his hustling career on the streets of Los Angeles long after he became a literary darling) has turned his gaze slowly from sexual misfits on the fringes (Rushes) to domestic tragedies (The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gómez) to this latest effort, a bildungsroman crafted in the style of 18th-century epic novels like Fielding’s Tom Jones.
The story begins, like so many of Rechy’s books do, in the barren reaches of West Texas. Lyle Clemens is the bastard son of the heartbroken failed beauty queen Sylvia Love, the first of many female also-rans Lyle encounters in his life — this novel is thickly populated by washed-up actresses, mysterious small-time gospel singers, and Tammy Faye Bakker wannabes. These characters chart their social and professional identities by their presence in the papers, Liz Smith’s gossip column, what have you. All these people want to see in Lyle a larger reflection that makes them look better (to themselves or others) or somehow advances their public profiles. These characters who float in and out of Lyle’s life all want to be seen, to be noticed, acknowledged by the larger world — the irony is, of course, that Lyle can’t help but be seen, regardless of whether he wants to.
Lyle’s purpose is not only to provide visibility to those who desperately crave it, but also to dispense grace where it is needed. The book’s leitmotif, “Amazing Grace,” is stripped of its religious significance (despite the large part played by Pentecostal zealots in the narrative) when it comes to Lyle. He is surrounded by people bereft of grace who are drawn to him because he possesses it in spades, though his sweetness and naiveté make him unaware of his own gifts.
Rechy has crafted a simple, hilarious, and wrenching tale, that of a boy who loves his momma, while coyly poking fun at celebrities both real and imagined, all while underscoring the fact that grace cannot be sought, it can only be achieved.
This article appears in January 16 • 2004.