John Rechy's fiction has always shown an interest in the night side of human feeling. He is drawn to the illicit, to outcasts, to the transgressor's knowledge….

Rushes, though yet another exploration of the underground, represents a culmination of Rechy's themes. Unaccommodating, aggressive, brooding, it is Rechy's most ambitious work stylistically and also in the questions it raises about the quality of "liberation."

A self-conscious religious ardour inspires the language of this novel…. The devout tone is meant to dignify the hypnotic power the bar holds over its clientele, to give solemnity to the intoxication—the rush—of dangerous desires. This evocation of fervent, spiritual feeling contrasts sharply with the sordid scenes described, suggesting an ambivalence in Rechy's portrayal of the homosexual underground—is it paradise or purgatory? The religious metaphors are crudely overreaching. But the ambivalence appeals to the moral predisposition of Rechy's audience, and the dense...