Given the extremely early hour in which I'm typing this, I can't exactly give a thorough review of the book, but I'll try my best not to ramble on. Basically the story is about four main characters: Jesse who grew up on the romanticist Wild West, Lisa who relies on the great romances of the old movies, Orin whose reliance on near-gothic dogma remains a mystery for almost the entire novel, and the city of Los Angeles. To properly describe the character of Los Angeles, Rechy tells the tales of several of the city's inhabitants; he chooses the stereotypical people of L.A. (grungy Chicano, male hustlers, aging strippers, etc.) and delves into justifying their actions and contradictions.
Throughout the novel Rechy successfully uses two major themes to such success and clarity: sex and foreshadowing.
Like Shakespeare and Luhrman, Rechy gives the tragic ending to the story in the beginning, but he keeps descriptions informal. At the end of the novel, once the three main characters have been fully explored, he goes into painstaking detail of every action, every thought, and every reason which further supplements the final events. Before the fatal shootings at the freeway, many instances of the event echo throughout the other individuals discussed in the story: a maid with apocalyptic visions cleans the home of a fashion designer whose "surprise" design is that of a fashion sniper, the aging male stripper's newly developed act has him decked out in commando uniform, and news of an escaped Vietnam veteran from a mental hospital. Then there is the chapter, placed almost in the exact center of the story, where a college lecturer blatantly lays out the themes of the book.
"As long as death exists, free will does not. Except perhaps in suicide. Have we arrived at a possible act of perfection--the one action in which fate embraces choice?"Sex is used by Rechy as if it were a literary device. Often times the compromising situations that the characters find themselves in are symbolic of other issues. A reporter duels with a crewman in bed while exercising her power of control and manipulation. The stripper hides behind a leather-daddy facade to mask his insecurities. A Mr. Universal contestant is controlled by the federation's president through his wife's sex addiction. The Chicano punk rock fan has a quicky with a girl in a band to signify his initiation into the culture. Gigglos not only gain their livelyhood from the sex they have, but are also given an aire of importance and disgust because of it. A schizophrenic tramp distracts a fellow homeless man with supposed sex in order to get his money to buy wine. The list goes on; all occurences hinting that the sex being had is about power and control, much like Oscar Wilde once observed.
And in the end, it really is the thing called fate that ties all these lives into one moment of sheer coincidence.
... damn, I regurgitated half of what Rechy himself wrote in his introduction. Oh well, the book's still a good read.