Tom Spanbauer (June 30, 1946 – September 21, 2024) was an American writer whose work often explored issues of sexuality, race, and the ties that bind disparate people together.
In Faraway Places, Spanbauer's first novel, young Jake Weber witnesses the murder of a Native American woman and is forced to reevaluate the community he was raised in.
"[12] The Los Angeles Times stated that "in his promising but uneven first novel, a coming-of-age story set in the early 50s, Tom Spanbauer writes convincingly as a teen-age boy bewildered by events that destroy his family's rural life.
Stephen Dubner, writing for New York Magazine, describes the novel as "a sprawling tragicomedy set in a gold-rush town called Excellent, Idaho.
Shed, who is definitely bisexual and most likely mixed race, shares time, beds, and whiskey bottles with a pair of loving, flamboyant prostitutes and a soulful rancher who might be his father.
"[17] Now is the Hour returns to the bildungsroman arcs of earlier Spanbauer novels, opening as young Rigby John leaves his small town behind for San Francisco.
Entertainment Weekly favored the novel, writing this review: Although criticized from some corners as following a commonplace plot,[19] Now is the Hour has been praised for its "strikingly beautiful writing… even the one climactic moment of violence is tender and dreamlike.
"[20] I Loved You More is the first of Spanbauer's novels to address his personal struggle coping with HIV and AIDS, as well as male bisexuality, through the looping narrative of main character Ben Grunewald.