Kindle Price: $11.99

Save $6.00 (33%)

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

John Rechy
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Fourth Angel (Rechy, John) Kindle Edition

by John Rechy (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.4 3.4 out of 5 stars 23 ratings
See all formats and editions
From the New York Times–bestselling author of City of Night: a “powerful work that may very well be Rechy’s best” (Kirkus Reviews).
 
Compelling and ferociously relevant, The Fourth Angel is the story of four teenagers playing deadly games with drugs, sex, and one another. Behind a facade of tough cynicism, on a raging search for kicks, they explore the hot, dusty city, bent on trouble. There are three “angels”—Shell, Cob, and Manny—and their recruit Jerry, who becomes the fourth.
 
Hovering in that uncertain limbo between childhood and adulthood, the four angels maintain a precarious balance among themselves and with the outside world. Each one is today’s street kid: still tinged with innocence and capable of beauty, but at the same time, full of rage and violence, attempting to conceal an ugly past.
 
Praise for John Rechy
 
“Rechy shows great comic and tragic talent. He is truly a gifted novelist.” —Christopher Isherwood, author and playwright
 
“His tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own, and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful recklessness. He tells the truth, and tells it with such passion that we are forced to share in the life he conveys. This is a most humbling and liberating achievement.” —James Baldwin, novelist, playwright, and activist
 
“Fresh, beautiful, totally courageous and totally cool, passionate . . . His uncompromising honesty as a gay writer has provoked as much fear as admiration . . . John Rechy doesn’t fit into categories. He transcends them. His individual vision is unique, perfect, loving and strong.” —Carolyn See, author of Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America
Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    161 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Grove Press
  5. Publication date
    December 1, 2007
  6. File size
    2795 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
Next page
Add a debit or credit card to save time when you check out
Convenient and secure with 2 clicks. Add your card

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005FFPURS
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press (December 1, 2007)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 1, 2007
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2795 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 161 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.4 3.4 out of 5 stars 23 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
John Rechy

John Rechy

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

3.4 out of 5 stars
3.4 out of 5
23 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

TMPuyallup
5.0 out of 5 stars Grandson loves it
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2023
Verified Purchase
My grandson like different types of books and he was very surprised when he got it for Christmas. He thoight it would be hard to find.
Helpful
 Report
Eric
5.0 out of 5 stars Reader beware! It's very sexually graphic!
Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2016
Verified Purchase
Reader beware! It's very sexually graphic!
Helpful
 Report
Stacy Helton
1.0 out of 5 stars Ms. Bossypants and a Trio of Malcontents
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2012
I don't know why I keep punishing myself with John Rechy's oeuvre. Earlier this year I read RUSHES, which I really disliked, but this book I really really disliked. THE FOURTH ANGEL, published in 1972, is the story of three "angels," two boys and a girl who pick up a fourth "angel," a boy whose mother had recently died. Basically the four of them interrogate homosexuals and get high. This all takes place in a dusty Texas town near the Rio Grande. I counted at least five times that the gang hitchhikes, and in none of those cases did anything interesting happen. There is a sexually charged, homoerotic undertone to the whole book that is abruptly and unrealistic flung at the reader in the final pages. The time period reeks of the counterculture, and there is an interesting scene at the river when all of these disparate types merge, but Rechy's beautiful writing is for naught because of the incomprehensible plotting. There is an extended LSD scene (maybe 1/3 of the book) where the characters have taken the drug and float around town. Only in HAIR is a trip entertaining (or MAD MEN), and this one is dull dull dull. And so hard to follow. I so loved Rechy's CITY OF NIGHT (and even the campy COMING OF THE NIGHT) that I suppose I'll follow him to the end, but maybe just the ones with ambiguous hustlers.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Youth run wild
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2001
A gang of four alienated teens raise cain all over El Paso, Texas in this, one of Rechy's earlier novels. The teens--a jaded rich girl; her two male friends; and the "fourth angel" who joins them, a young man recovering from his mother's death--turn to drugs and a little bit of the old ultraviolence to block out the pain of their lives.
As an examination of troubled youth, this novel sometimes plunges into the kind of cliches I associate with bad JD movies (emotionally wounded kids rebelling against hypocritical society, etc., etc.). But Rechy manages to create four vivid, distinct characters here; they're more complex than the street-corner nihilists they proclaim themselves to be--and that's exactly the point. Tight prose and a quick pace are additional assets. Though not as impressive as "City of Night," it's a readable book that hasn't dated much (except for the occasional "far out!" dialogue) since its initial publication in 1972, whereas Bret Easton Ellis' vaguely similar "Less Than Zero" feels lost in the '80s. It's worth reading.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Bob Fitzconner
5.0 out of 5 stars A Severed Branch Can Grow Again
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 31, 2017
Verified Purchase
It's early summer 1970 in El Paso, Texas. Four adolescents are struggling to process feelings about their parents. Jerry's mother died six weeks earlier, Manny and Cob both feel put out by their wayward mothers. Two-parent rich girl Shell suppresses the most, at extraordinary cost to those she tries to control.

Written soon after his own mother's death, the action unfolds over two days and nights where Rechy uses the medium of drugtaking - cannabis, LSD, mescaline, cocaine, barbiturates - to help these four hurting teenagers slay their dragons, get their feelings out, and start to live again.

Well-chosen song quotes from The Crow on the Cradle, and Have You Ever Seen the Rain, anchor this short introspective novel at the end of the 1960s. But John Rechy's The Fourth Angel is fresh, dazzling, and authentic and probably even more relevant today to sentient adults of any age.
Report
Owain Hume
2.0 out of 5 stars If you were looking for something as good as City of Night, you’ll have to keep looking.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 6, 2021
Verified Purchase
The book was pointless and felt as if it had been written just to get something out by the author. The sorry was boring, repetitive, annoying and the ended was just a waste of time.

I thoroughly enjoyed City of Night and this is nothing like it.
Report
Graeme S
5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to put down
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 20, 2014
Verified Purchase
A favourite of mine from way back, well written and hard to put down
Report
Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report