» ¡una 1, 2001
The dark side
of the m an
who fell in love
w ith the moon
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uclced dry.”
That’s how Tom Span-
bauer describes the experi
ence of writing his latest
book, In the City of Shy Hunters. Ten
years after publishing the highly
regarded The Man Who Fell in Love
with the Moon, five years after almost
dying of AIDS, two years after end
ing a long-term relationship, the
Portland author has channeled his
grief, his rage and his longing into
an epic of Wagnerian proportions.
“It’s the responsibility of the
survivor to tell the story,” Span-
bauer writes, but he almost didn’t
live to tell this tale of a band of
eccentric New Yorkers on the front
lines of the battle against AIDS in
the 1980s. His own brush with
death interrupted the writing of
the novel, but it also steeled his
courage to complete it.
into sadomasochism or even leather. I’d like to
The phrase “The only way out is in” repeats
express that, but then I get there and I always
throughout the book as a leitmotif and, like
feel so silly.”
Dante descending into the inferno in order to
The leather world’s loss is literature’s gain,
ascend, Spanbauer felt compelled to return to
however, and fans of The Man Who Fell in Love
his past in order to move on.
with the Moon’s sexual frankness will not be dis
“I always feel that your writing is strong by
appointed by his newest novel. But In the City of
going to your own scary places,” he says. “1 think
Shy Hunters is not a book meant to be read with
of this book like a journey into the underworld
one hand— its explicitness is meant to provoke
to retrieve something very, very important.”
some honest examination of our sexuality.
Reflecting back on the injustices of the
Despite the image that gay men are
1980s, Spanbauer says: “I still hate the Reagans.
obsessed with sex, and genitalia in particular,
I still want to see them publicly humiliated.”
Spanbauer finds most of them reluctant to
Raised in a German Catholic enclave in
engage in a meaningful conversation about it.
Idaho surrounded by Mormons, Spanbauer first
“W ho really talks about big cocks and little
found his voice as a
cocks in literature?”
writer while still living
Tm still working out he says. “These are
at home and going to
all of this abuse and things we all won
college. “It was the
all this darkness and der about— you
early 1960s and every
all this sin that I got wonder about me, I
thing was so clean and
wonder about you—
from Catholicism.”
so cute and none of it
but we don’t talk
made any sense to me,”
—Tom Spanbauer about it. We’re like
he says, “so I started a
women in the ’50s;
journal and on the first page I wrote the word
we get together and what do we do? We talk
‘TRUTHS’ in big, swirly letters.”
about flower arrangements.”
Revelations like “I jerked off three times
Spanbauer relates that the surest way to
today” might hardly raise a titter nowadays, but
clear a room at a dull gay party is to turn to
they sent shock waves coursing through Span-
someone and say: “Gee, what’s your relation
bauer’s house when his mother found the jour
ship to your penis? ’Cause, y’know, I’ve always
nal taped to the top of his underwear drawer.
been kind of troubled by mine.”
“My father said to me, ‘You take that thing you
He continues, “Statistics are that the aver
call a journal and get out of this house, but first
age male’s penis is 5 inches long, but we pick
you go in there and apologize to your m oth
up Honcho and there’s not a 5 inch penis in
er... then the three of us knelt down and
there, and there’s not a skinny penis either.”
prayed for my soul not to go to hell,” he says.
Spanbauer’s candor dealing with issues of
Today, Spanbauer routinely goes to hell
size and potency in Shy Hunters does much to
looking for material. “I’m still working out all
dispel the notion that if men don’t live up to
of this abuse and all this darkness and all this
the Honcho standard they are somehow defi
sin that I got from Catholicism," he says. “I’m
cient. He describes the time period as being all
surprised, after all I’ve been through, I’m not
about “rage and genitalia.”