A Novel: I Loved You More

A Novel

Tom Spanbauer

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Paperback

On Sale: 04/01/2014 | $20.95

9780986000782 | Paperback 5-1/2 x 9 | 468 pages

Book Description

Tom Spanbauer’s first novel in seven years is a love story triangle akin to The Marriage Plot and Freedom, only with a gay main character who charms gays and straights alike. I Loved You More is a rich, expansive tale of love, sex, and heartbreak, covering twenty-five years in the life of a striving, emotionally wounded writer. In New York, Ben forms a bond of love with his macho friend and foil, Hank. Years later in Portland, a now ill Ben falls for Ruth, who provides the care and devotion he needs, though they cannot find true happiness together. Then Hank reappears and meets Ruth, and real trouble starts. Set against a world of struggling artists, the underground sex scene of New York in the 1980s, the drab, confining Idaho of Ben’s youth, and many places in between, I Loved You More is the author’s most complex and wise novel to date.

About the Author

TOM SPANBAUER was born in a trunk in the Princess Theater in Pocatello, Idaho. Not really. The Princess Theater wasn’t anymore by the time he came on the scene. He went to Catholic School until the eighth grade and then to Pocatello High School, then graduated from the newly finished Highland High. Five years at Idaho State University and he received a BA in English with a minor in German. In 1969 Tom went into the Peace Corps and he spent two years in Kenya, East Africa. Then came the 70s and the Married Years in Boise, Idaho. In 1978, Tom set himself free and moved to New England, then Key West, the finally settled in New York City for seven years. Tom, a survivor of AIDS, has lived and worked in Portland for fifteen years where he teaches Dangerous Writing. His novels include Faraway Places, The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon, In The City of Shy Hunters, and Now Is The Hour.

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Praise For This Book

"Tom Spanbauer, gifted anatomist of messy emotions and rangy sexuality, returns with I Loved You More." —Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

"Spanbauer simply unpacks imagery, events, and dialogue without judgment, allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions. If anything, I Loved You More provides an empathic view of bisexual relationships as the most natural in the world, perhaps the most generous expression of love and shared strength for the survival of humanity." —Rachel Wexelbaum, Lambda Literary

"Spanbauer relays from the start that Hank succumbs to cancer before he and Ben can make up the rift that springs from Ben’s jealousy, so once the destruction unfolds in the final act, it happens at a riveting, fast pace. By turns poignant and funny, Spanbauer’s story rings true at every turn." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"The fireworks that ensue between these strong-willed people over the course of book―not to mention the raw psychic scars and corrosive feelings that are ever-prevalent―are gripping. Spanbauer’s talent is to collide all emotions against one another, quite often on the same page and sometimes in the same paragraph." —Christopher Carbone, Kirkus Reviews

"Tom Spanbauer's I Loved You More is the most important book on sexuality, love, and the low down of relationships that I have ever read. The brilliant language is an epic ballad so deeply rendered it killed me and resurrected me a page at a time. This book is not a love story. It guts the heart of the cliché love story and hands it back to you, beating. Love is the endless falling." —Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water

"Intelligence, wit, generosity, love, wisdom, insight, humility, guts, heart-crushing truth and spirit-lifting grace—it’s all there in I Loved You More. This is Tom Spanbauer’s wrenching and beautiful masterpiece." —Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

"A masterful novel of what becomes of us long after we've 'come of age' and done all the brave things we thought would save us. Tom Spanbauer's pages pulse with life in all its messy beauty." —Ariel Gore, Publisher of Hip Mama Magazine and author of How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights

"A great read, I Loved You More is a brutal and beautiful book of love, sex, and friendship that begins in the impossible but totally mesmerizing decade of the 1980s and spans the next twenty years." —Sam Adams, Former Mayor of Portland, Oregon