Now Is The Hour

by Tom Spanbauer

Overview

Rigby John Klusener is hitchhiking to San Francisco. The year is 1967, the town is Pocatello, Idaho. Fresh out of high school, Rigby John is leaving behind his bohemian ex-girlfriend, his prayerful mother, his distant father, and the hay dust of his harsh farm town Catholic upbringing. As he stands by the side of the road desperately waiting for that one ride out, he reflects on the events that brought him there: the discovery of love, friendship, literature, and all the small joys that set him free. At once a tale of sexual awakening, racial enlightenment, and personal epiphany, Now Is the Hour is the disarming and sweetly winning story of one unforgettable teenager who dares to hope for a different life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780618872640
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/12/2007
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

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.

Editorial Reviews

A risky assay into the traditional bildungsroman, with this straightforward, but luminous tale.
Publishers Weekly, Starred

Spanbauer writes this fairly traditional coming-of-age story with a raw energy that makes it compelling.
Kirkus Reviews

Sophisticated, funny, poignant, sexy coming-of-age novel...
Booklist, ALA, Starred Review

Full of hope, sadness and humor, this is an extended ballad in the voice of an appealing narrator People Magazine

Vividly reflecting...Grade: B+ Entertainment Weekly

Spanbauer is a generous writer..."Now Is the Hour" is an engaging novel.
The Seattle Times

"Now Is the Hour" is at once beautiful and hilarious.
The Oregonian —

From the Publisher

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 Scardinoespecially-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."

Kirkus Reviews