Chicano/a Multiplicity and In-betweenness in John Rechy’s City of Night

Abstract

John Rechy’s novel City of Night, published in 1963, predated the Chicano Movement and the scholarly concentration on Mexican American issues that came in the movement’s wake. However, many of the subjects that have preoccupied scholars since the beginning of the interdisciplinary field of Chicano Studies, such as the multiplicity of identities in the Chicano/a community, were anticipated in Rechy’s novel. Through an analysis of narrative techniques, such as the first person point of view and observational tone, the episodic structure and picaresque genre, this article outlines how multiplicity and in-betweenness, especially in terms of ethnicity and sexuality, are constructed in the novel and can be considered as an example of the conceptual space of nepantla.