june l it 2000.'
Living to tell the tale
Celebrated author Tom Spanbauer
to read from his first novel in 10 years
by
M
arc
l l ^ P h e reason I
write is
because I can’t
cry and talk at
the same time,” says
Portland author Tom
Spanbauer, the man
behind the acclaimed
novel The M an W ho
Fell in Love with the
Moon.
Spanbauer has had
good reason to cry of
late: He nearly suc
cumbed to A ID S four
years ago and last year
saw his 11 -year rela
tionship with his part
ner fall apart.
He has channeled
his grief, though, into
his newest novel, In
the City o f Shy
Hunters, a work his
editor at Grove
Atlantic doesn’t hesi
tate to call "brilliant”
and a “masterpiece.”
Publication is slated for spring of 2001, but
fans of Spanbauer’s writing can get a sneak pre
view when he makes a rare public appearance
to read from the new novel June 23 at Barnes
&. Noble.
In the City o f Shy Hunters takes places in
Manhattan between 1983 and 1988. Despite
the setting, however, the novel still promises to
deliver the same kind of trippy lyricism that
made The M an W ho Fell in Love with the M oon
something of a cross between Dances with
Wolves and Priscilla, Q ueen o f the Desert. Magic
realism suffuses Spanbauer’s work, as in the
novels of Gabriel García Márquez and Toni
Morrison, to whom he has been compared.
“We call it magic realism, but that’s so eth
nocentric” says Spanbauer. “It’s the white guy
making the decision that anybody who doesn’t
write about parties at the pool is all of sudden
writing about magic. My reality is very spooky,
and full of ghosts and memories and images."
Among the ghosts in his new novel is the
hovering specter of a plague: “That horrible
feeling we all felt when A ID S first struck— that
panic,” says the author, “I’ve held that close to
me these past 10 years, remembering how that
was, so I could tell it.”
He also says the book, which explores the
question of whether we can control our destiny,
will certainly “piss a lot of people off. I mean,
it’s about faggots," he adds by way of explana
tion. What should enrage the average homo
phobe will likely delight gay readers, as Span
bauer says the novel is most accurately
described as “a love story.”
Spanbauer doesn’t think of his books as
being "gay novels," however, although he does
believe they reflect a “gay sensibility.”
“This kind of macho, sport-minded, insur
ance-company world out there,” he says, “that
white-male-dominated thing is just real hard
for me to understand.”
He cites a characteristically quirky example:
HI be watching T V and I’ll think, ‘Oh, this
isn t a bad channel,’ and all of a sudden the
network identification will come on and it’ll go
The Woman’s C hannel.’ ”
Born and raised in Boise, Idaho, in 1946,
A
c it o
a Spanbauer underwent
a several hippie rites of
passage in the late-
’60s, including
becoming blood
brothers with a
Shoshone Indian and
serving in the Peace
Corps. After a tour of
duty in Kenya, Span
bauer returned to
Boise and got married.
But eventually
nature followed its
own true course and
Spanbauer left the
marriage (and Boise)
and took off for Key
West, Fla., which was
about as good a place
to come out as one
could imagine.
Having grown
tired, however, of the
scene in Key West—
“You can only talk
about suntans and
blow jobs so long”—
and ready to advance himself as a writer, Span
bauer moved to New York City in 1983 to earn
his master’s degree in fiction from Columbia
University. He wrote both his earlier novels,
Faraway Places and The Man Who Fell in Love
with the Moon while working as an apartment
building superintendent in Manhattan.
“New York would always slap me around
real hard,” Spanbauer says.
But the turning point came when, already
ailing from HIV, he passed out in the middle of
Penn Station. Lying on the floor, alone in a sea
of strangers, Spanbauer made the decision to
get the hell out of New York and to try to save
his own life.
The fledgling author came to Portland with
his partner in 1990, but his health worsened as
his national reputation grew. By 1996, he had
only 17 T cells left and his weight had dipped
60 pounds. Fortunately, at his darkest hour, the
triple “cocktail” therapy became available.
“I was released from the hospital the same
week The Wall Street Journal ran the article on
protease inhibitors," he says, citing the drugs
that have kept him alive ever since.
Today, Spanbauer’s T cells number over 400
and his viral load remains undetectable, but
the healing continues to be a slow, laborious
process.
“After having AIDS and almost dying, get
ting a new body, coming back, I feel like I’m
totally new,” he says. “And now having left my
relationship of 11 years, I really don’t know
what I think. I’m 53 and I don’t know how to
get there from here.”
One thing is for certain, however— that
kind of rigorous honesty is bound to make In
the City o f Shy Hunters well worth the wait.
■ The Literary Triangle presents T om SPAN
BAUER at 7 p m . June 23 at Barnes & Noble
Lloyd Center, 1231 N .E . Broadway. For more
information, call (503) 3 3 1'1307.
M arc A cito frequently contributes to Just
Out. He wishes that the person to whom he loaned
his copy o f The Man Who Fell in Love With
the Moon would please give it back.
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for Portland’s Gay and Lesbian Community and their Friends
Tuesday, June 27
(And on the fourth Monday
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7:30 to 9:30 PM
Admission: $5.00
Includes skate rental
Please bring non-perishable food item s for Esther’s Pantry
Oaks P ark R oller Rink At the east end of the Sellwood Bridge
For m ore information call (503) 234-9944 or visit our w eb site: w w w .rdrop.com /users/ram blers/
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