Mysteries and Desire

Excerpts from a CD-ROM by Marsha Kinder & Kristy H.A. Kang with John Rechy and James Tobias

 Recipient of the New Media Invision Gold Award for Overall Design, 2000

Written & Produced by Marsha Kinder in collaboration with John Rechy
Interface Design: Kristy H.A. Kang & James Tobias, in consultation with William S. Hughes & Marsha Kinder
Art Director: Kristy H.A. Kang
Programming: William S. Hughes
Sound Design: James Tobias
Additional Graphics: Sergio Ramirez, Augie Robles, James Tobias, Raqi Syed & Han Yi
(see full production credits)

Challenging the borders between autobiography, memory, history and fiction, this interactive memoir presents a diverse array of personal materials by and about John Rechy and sets them against larger collective histories of Chicano culture and the gay world. Drawing passages from all of Rechy’s published novels, it also mines the outrageous fictions that circulate around this fascinating literary figure who, as a gay icon, a Chicano writer from Texas, a dedicated bodybuilder, a gifted teacher of creative writing, and the 1997 recipient of the PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award, has long been a subject of notoriety and fantasy. Combining original artwork, video, archival documents, and recorded interviews and commentaries, it lets you move through three interrelated realms – Memories, Bodies and Cruising – each with its own daring repertoire of gestural interfaces.