Now is the hour

Format:

Book

Title:

Now is the hour

Author:

Spanbauer, Tom author

ISBN:

9780618584215

Publication:

Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.

Physical Description:

459 pages ; 24 cm

General Note:

The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy was acquired as part of The Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture.

Summary:

In 1967, seventeen-year-old Rigby John Klusener leaves his hometown in Idaho to hitchhike to San Francisco, where he must face his fears and his own sexuality.

Subject(s):

Triangles (Interpersonal relations) -- Fiction.

Gay men -- Fiction.

Indians of North America -- Fiction.

Hitchhiking -- Fiction.

United States -- History -- 1961-1969 -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

United States -- History -- 1961-1969 -- Fiction.

Genre:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Salem Main Library	Spanbauer, T.	Searching... Unknown

The year is 1967, and Rigby John Klusener, seventeen years old and finally leaving his home and family in Pocatello, Idaho, is on the highway with his thumb out and a flower behind his ear, headed for San Francisco. Now Is the Hour is the wondrous story of how Rigby John got to this point. It traces his gradual emancipation from the repressions of a strictly religious farming family and from the small-minded, bigoted community in which he has grown up during a time of explosive cultural change. Transforming this familiar journey from American Graffiti to On the Road into something rich and strange and hilarious is the persona of Rigby John himself. Intimately in touch with his fears, hesitantly awakening to his own sexuality, and palpably open to life's mysteries, Rigby John is a protagonist whom readers will fall in love with, root for, and be moved by.

Now Is the Hour is a powerful, vastly entertaining story of self-awakening, of the complex bonds of family, and ultimately of America during a period of tremendous upheaval.

Author Notes

TOM SPANBAUER is the author of the beloved classic The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award for best fiction, and a dazzlingly accomplished" novel, according to the Washington Post. His earlier novels are Faraway Places and In the City of Shy Hunters. He lives in Portland, Oregon."

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly 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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Review

A simmering Midwestern household boils over when a gay teenager discovers sex, drugs and rock-'n'-roll circa 1967. On the family farm in Pocatello, Idaho, Rigby John Klusener obeys his repressed, work-weary parents like a good Catholic boy should, but it doesn't seem to do much good. His dour father hardly acknowledges him. And his mother alternates between enjoying Rigby's high spirits--he plays dress up with his older sister--and assuring him he's going to hell. At school, life's equally grim: Joe Scardino regularly beats him up, and the word "queer" is sneered in his direction long before he knows what it means. Once puberty hits, bringing chronic tumescence, life gets even harder: His mother spies him in a private moment of "self abuse" and transports Rigby at 80 miles an hour down the highway to confession. His father, a raging bigot, threatens Rigby with his belt if he befriends anyone outside their church. Into this bleakness arrives Billie Cody, a large-breasted sophomore with a gimlet eye for false piety. They smoke pot, listen to the car radio, kiss a little, but mostly they talk about literature, hypocrisy and the future. When Billie finds sexual fulfillment elsewhere and winds up pregnant, everyone assumes Rigby is the father. Prom night brings everything to flash point: Rigby's mother stalks her defiant son with a broom handle; Billie's drunken father wants Rigby's hide; and Scardino needs to settle an old score with his former whipping boy. Only George Serano, a notorious local full of his Indian tribe's spiritual wisdom and a brazen passion for other men, can help Rigby find his personal path out of town. Although some of his bullying characters--the father and Scardino especially--are mere personifications of evil, Spanbauer (The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, 1991, etc.) writes this fairly traditional coming-of-age story with a raw energy that makes it compelling. A nostalgic paean to young "warriors of love." Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist 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 Moon0 (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 Hooper Copyright 2006 Booklist

Library Journal Review

This novel opens in Idaho, with 17-year-old Rigby John Klusener hitchhiking along a desolate highway, hoping to relocate to his self-perceived Shangri-La of San Francisco. Why such a young man would feel a need to flee his outwardly ordinary rural life is carefully detailed in the novel's next 400-plus pages, in which Spanbauer (The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon) explains what it was like for a socially awkward gay teenager to grow up in a strict Catholic household, especially one with a seemingly unending string of bad fortune. Despite a brutal father, a radically repressed mother, and physically abusive classmates, Rigby John eventually finds friends, and even love, by looking in unconventional places. When he ventures out of his carefully cultivated Catholic/farm-life existence, he finds companionship in the form of two free-spirited Mexican workers, a hippy chick who attends the public high school, and a middle-aged gay alcoholic Indian who possesses an alluring mysticism. Though certain images become a bit repetitive, Spanbauer's novel is worthy of its length, especially considering the absorbing denouement. An intelligent family drama that should appeal to a variety of age groups; recommended for most fiction collections.-Kevin Greczek, Ewing, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Lonesome Traveler	p. 1
I Unforgettable
1 The Early Days	p. 31
2 After Russell	p. 63
3 He Wore a Yellow Tulip	p. 87
II Somebody to Love
4 Gringa Loca	p. 117
5 Wild Thing	p. 157
6 Cast Your Fate to the Wind	p. 177
7 Going to the Chapel	p. 211
III Thunderbird
8 A Day in the Life	p. 253
9 Downtown	p. 290
10 Hey There, Georgy Girl	p. 322
IV Purple Haze
11 The Great Escape	p. 355
12 The Back Door	p. 390
13 As Fate Would Have It	p. 428

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