Alfred Chester Needs a Place in Letters Too

While I sympathize with John Rechy over his bad review by Alfred Chester and agree that it’s rotten luck that one review seems to have pursued him, Rechy’s reputation as a pioneer in gay fiction is undisputed (“Righting a Wrong from Long Ago,” Sept. 15).

Rechy can also take comfort in the fact that he is remembered while Chester has been nearly forgotten.

Alfred Chester was a powerful, if often bitchy, voice in his brief career as a literary critic from 1962 to 1965, and readers, while sympathetic to Rechy’s justified complaint, might want to read for themselves Chester’s entertaining critical writings collected in “Looking for Genet, Literary Essays and Reviews” published by Black Sparrow Press in 1992.

EDWARD FIELD, Editor

Alfred Chester Newsletter

New York, N.Y.