From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Spanbauer follows his well-received
The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon with a risky assay into the traditional bildungsroman, with this straightforward but luminous tale of a country boy's self-liberation. In the summer of 1967, 17-year-old Rigby John Klusener is hitchhiking from his hometown of Pocatello, Idaho, to San Francisco to escape a life of religious, racial and sexual bigotry. He leaves behind a pregnant girlfriend, a hopelessly mystified mother, an embittered father and a sister trapped in a brutal marriage. As he waits for a ride out on the deserted highway, he winds the story back to his childhood, then virtually walks the reader through a life marked by hard farm work, Catholic guilt and the liberating passion of deep friendships formed with the most scandalously disreputable people of the community. From his first school-yard fight to first experiences with sex (of various sorts), cigarettes, alcohol, pot, jealousy and love, Rigby John's first person is at once reliable and highly ironic; we may know better, but he truly doesn't, and the distance is delicious. And his genuine astonishment at other people (great names: Allen "Puke" Price; Grandma Queep) keeps his telling edgy and warm, without allowing it to be sentimental.
(May 15) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* This sophisticated, funny, poignant, sexy coming-of-age novel is by the author of the well-received and continuously popular
The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon (1991), which was his second novel. His new one, frankly, is even better. "The universe has always conspired to fuck me up," maintains teenage Rigby John Klusener, who, in the 1960s, lives with his parents and sister on an Idaho farm. How he learns otherwise--that sometimes life bestows pleasures and actual advancement--is the lesson of his seventeenth year and the plot construct of this lengthy but absolutely nimble narrative, related by Rigby himself. Rigby is bound and determined to break away from the bonds of his repressive home environment, first in the form and arms of a girlfriend, and then, far more profoundly, of the outrageous but bighearted George, who, although much older than Rigby, unlocks for him the splendor of true love. Rigby's storytelling voice is natural, warm, and positively addictive; the many pages of this breathtaking, romantic, and unpredictable novel fly past. Rarely does such a gripping story match with such a lovable character. Simply sit back and enjoy the lovely partnership.
Brad HooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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