The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“A funny, sexy, far-fetched coming-of-age story” from the award-winning, New York Times–bestselling author of City of Night (The Washington Post).
John Rechy—described by Gore Vidal as “one of the few original writers of the last century”—delivers a riotous bildungsroman that pays homage to the classic eighteenth-century picaresque.
Loosely inspired by Fielding’s Tom Jones, The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens follows the journey of handsome Lyle Clemens as he travels through the religious fundamentalist world of Texas to the gambling palaces of Las Vegas and the enticing traps of Los Angeles’s mythologies.
As Lyle approaches adulthood, everyone wants him to be something he’s not. His beautiful mother wants to make him into a reflection of the cowboy who abandoned her; a group of avaricious fundamentalists plot to convert him into “the Lord’s Cowboy” to rouse their televangelical empire to new frenzied heights; and the lovely Maria wants him to fulfill her varying fantasies of “true love.” When Lyle leaves home to make his own destiny, he encounters a gallery of charlatans and wistful souls, quirky gamblers, aging starlets, and wily pornographers.
The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens is “a potent compound of both sex and rapture . . . sly, smart, sexy and laugh-out-loud funny, but it is also tinged with sorrow and ultimately elevated into the realm of magic” (The Los Angeles Times Book Review).
“Ambitious and very funny . . . a tall tale, a simultaneously sweet and vicious satire of contemporary America . . . a comic tour de force and, at the same time, a truly heartfelt book.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This ambitious and very funny novel tells the coming-of-age story of Lyle Clemens, "the child who would grow up to become the Mystery Cowboy who appeared naked along Hollywood Boulevard." It's a tall tale, a simultaneously sweet and vicious satire of contemporary America, with the handsome, empathic and guileless Lyle an innocent in a cruel world serving as vehicle for Rechy's reflections on religion, sexuality, fame and greed. Self-consciously modeled on Henry Fielding's 18th-century classic The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, the book begins with Lyle's birth in Rio Escondido, Tex., to the unwed Sylvia Love, whose dream of becoming Miss America was shattered by her Bible-thumping mother Eulah. The book feels at times like one of Robert Altman's classic films, perhaps Nashville, with its expansive canvas and its mixture of humor and sadness. Moving with fluid grace from Anaheim, Calif., to Las Vegas and Hollywood, the story features a large cast of characters, most of whom use Lyle to further their own ambitions, notably Brother Bud and Sister Sis, a pair of greedy televangelists, and a has-been actress named Tarah Worth. Rechy has great command of this sprawling narrative, and he generally strikes the right balance between satire and real emotion. His humor can be less than subtle an unsavory pair of mismatched pornographers and a crooked banker are named after several standing Supreme Court justices and his explicit, campy sex scenes won't please everyone. Still, this distinctly American novel is ultimately about the search for love and redemption, about the ideal of "amazing grace" from the old song that serves as a touchstone for Lyle. It's a comic tour de force and, at the same time, a truly heartfelt book.
