[The Sexual Outlaw is a] fictionalized "non-fiction" account of a "true spectrum of the [homosexual] promiscuous experience", three days and nights in the life of Jim ("sometimes Jerry, sometimes John") alias John Rechy….

By a quantitative measure, this sexual marathon seems to rate highly. And yet The Sexual Outlaw is not erotic, and is unlikely to excite anyone but a member of the Festival of Light. The "youngmen" (Rechy's own curious word) Jim, etc, encounters … are so lightly characterized as to be as enticing as a rubber model filled with warm water….

The interest is in "Jim" alone, his body-building, his naive pride in his good looks …, and his obsession with "scoring". However the nakedness of the exposure of this obsession lends the book a certain raw energy, without which it would be intolerable. It is still a long way behind Rechy's first book, City of Night, which...