Now Is the Hour

One of this city's most beloved and critically successful authors, Tom Spanbauer has become a figure of some notoriety in recent years, as much for his beautiful, terrifying novels—In the City of Shy Hunters and the gay-cowboy cult favorite The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon among them—as for the community of "Dangerous Writers" he has nurtured through his workshops (several of whom, including the pathologically prolific Chuck Palahniuk, have become quite successful in their own right). Spanbauer's latest novel, Now Is the Hour (Houghton Mifflin, 459 pages, $26), is an overtly autobiographical and unabashedly poetic account of a traumatic childhood in rural Idaho, complete with a violent father, a fanatically religious mother and a Native American lover named "Georgie Boy." In anticipation of an upcoming reading to benefit Write Around Portland, a charity that runs writing workshops for marginalized Portlanders, WW spoke with Spanbauer about the state of his art.

WW: These days, the shocking gay coming-of-age novel is a bit of a cliché. With all due respect, this novel doesn't seem all that, well, dangerous. Has your "dangerous writing" become...

Spanbauer: "Kinda dangerous?" Well, In the City of Shy Hunters was very violent—I fucked a cardinal, and the cardinal self-immolated. The danger in Now Is the Hour is much quieter; it's that of a little ego trying to grow. And trying to write that story in the face of heterosexual America—telling a very personal story of a particular family—makes this the most dangerous book I've written.... Dangerous writing is what scares you.

This book feels more intimate than your previous efforts. Is that a change for you?

It's just a development. There's more of me in this than in my other books. Rigby John's mother is very close to my mother. As a writer, I wanted to go back and investigate these places in my life, and to do that I had to see my parents as human beings.

You've said that In the City of Shy Hunters almost killed you. What about this book?

Now Is the Hour had the opposite effect. It took me only four and a half years to write, and the last book took me 10. It had a lot of healing for me, and my mother died in the middle of it. It's dedicated to her, and it's my goodbye.... I swore I wasn't going to love this book, but I do; I do love it.

Tom Spanbauer will read from

at Design Within Reach, 1200 NW Everett St., Saturday, Aug. 9. 6 pm. $12-$75. Tickets available at writearound.org.

WWeek 2015