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The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon

by

The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon Cover

ISBN13: 9780060974978
ISBN10: 0060974974
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

 

Awards

1992 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award winner.
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon is an American epic of the old West for our own times — a novel huge in its imaginative scope and daring in its themes.

The narrator is Shed, or Duivichi-un-Dua, a half-breed bisexual boy who makes his living at the Indian Head Hotel in the little turn-of-the-century town of Excellent, Idaho. The imperious Ida Richilieu is Shed's employer, the town's mayor and the mistress, and the mistress and owner of this outrageously pink whorehouse.

Together with the beautiful prostitute Alma Hatch, and the philosophical, green-eyed, half-crazy cowboy Dellwood Barker, this collection of misfits and outcasts make up the core of Shed's eccentric family. And although laced with the ugliness and cruelty of the frontier West — Shed is raped by the same man who then murders the woman he thinks is his mother, and the Mormon townspeople bring a fiery end to Ida's raucous way of life — the love and acceptance that tie this family together provide the true heart of this novel.

The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon is a beautifully told, mythic tale that is as well a profound meditation on sexuality, race and man's relationship to himself and the natural world.

Review:

"Freud would have had a field day. The 384 pages offer plenty of plot twists, humor, graphic but not prurient sex, didacticisms, some magic realism (North American-style) and a consistent view of life that might be termed "rebellious romanticism" for the 1990's. A different view of the West where the bisexuals and prostitutes wear the white hats, gender is up for grabs, and every permutation of love will have its way." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

"Dazzlingly accomplished." Washington Post Book World

Review:

"Haunting and earthy, this deeply felt tale of love and loss is told by Shed, a half-breed bisexual Indian....Spanbauer fuses raunchy dialogue, pathos, local color, heartbreak and a serious investigation of racism in this stunning narrative." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"Spanbauer's masterful plot is delightfully unpredictable and compelling." Library Journal

Synopsis:

Set in the gritty, often brutal frontier of the Old West, this story tells of Shed, a half-breed bisexual boy who makes his living at the Indian Head Hotel — the town's outrageously pink whorehouse.
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About the Author

Tom Spanbauer is the author of the novel Faraway Places. he lives in Portland, Oregon, and New York City.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 4 comments:
E S Pittenger, September 28, 2011 (view all comments by E S Pittenger)
“If you’re the devil, then it’s not me telling this story.” is the first line of this novel. The author’s credo is to write dangerously. The book’s contents are full of brutality, beauty, love, sex, death and life. Dense, rich, and vivid is the story of stories, the human-being tellings that unfold in this novel. Dazzling is probably the best adjective to describe the novel, since my mind feels like it’s looked directly at the sun while I’m reading about the moon.

The narrator is Shed, aka, Duivichi-un-Dua, a half-breed berdache (Indian word for 'holy man who fucks with men') who lives and whores at the Indian Head Hotel in not so Excellent, Idaho, a town nestled in the shadow of Not-Really-a-Mountain. Shed pursues killdeer, the concept of staying hidden and secret, and the tangled skeins of the story about who his father might be. "Being killdeer" allows Shed to engage in his hobby: scrutinizing.

Love and acceptance, the freedom to be who you are is what Ida Richelieu, the madam and owner of the shocking pink hotel who wears blue when she ovulates, believes in. “Oh, the humanity,” is one of her favorite sayings and one that encompasses what this book is about. Shed believes the green-eyed Dellwood Barker is his father. Dellwood may be more important than a father, he is a philosopher. He tells Shed the story of what it means to be alive. . . "Smoke and wind and fire are all things you can feel but can't touch. Memories and dreams are like that too. They're what this world is made up of. There's really only a very short time that we get hair and teeth and put on red cloth and have bones and skin and look out eyes. Not for long. Some folks longer than others. If you're lucky, you'll get to be the one who tells the story: how the eyes have seen, the hair has blown, the caress the skin has felt, how the bones have ached. What the human heart is like. How the devil called and we did not answer. How we answered."

Spanbauer has written a tale that exposes intolerance set against a pansexual West, unknown to Hollywood depictions. The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon is a novel in which the characters (and the reader) are entangled in a struggle to find out the answer to the questions of what makes family, are there limits to love, and how does one set the self (after it’s been identified) free. Freedom is what the devil would deny us and this is a book that does battle with the devil.
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TLKempner, January 23, 2010 (view all comments by TLKempner)
It is erotic, intriguing, twists and turns and you can never anticipate what happens next. Tom Spanbauer has the most incredible imagination and depth to his words. The visual images leave you breathless.
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rareform1010, January 14, 2010 (view all comments by rareform1010)
I've been reading this book for almost three years, weaving back and forth, because I'm in love with Shed.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780060974978
Author:
Spanbauer, Tom
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
Author:
by Tom Spanbauer
Author:
by Tom Spanbauer
Location:
New York :
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Indians of north america
Subject:
Westerns
Subject:
Western stories
Subject:
Indians of North America -- Fiction.
Subject:
Bildungsromane.
Subject:
Bildungsromans
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
1992
Edition Description:
Trade PB
Series Volume:
v.7-8
Publication Date:
19920931
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
368
Dimensions:
8.12x5.32x.90 in. .64 lbs.
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Related Subjects

Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
Gay and Lesbian » Fiction and Poetry » Men's Fiction

The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$7.50 In Stock
Product details 368 pages Harper Perennial - English 9780060974978 Reviews:
"Review" by , "Freud would have had a field day. The 384 pages offer plenty of plot twists, humor, graphic but not prurient sex, didacticisms, some magic realism (North American-style) and a consistent view of life that might be termed "rebellious romanticism" for the 1990's. A different view of the West where the bisexuals and prostitutes wear the white hats, gender is up for grabs, and every permutation of love will have its way."
"Review" by , "Dazzlingly accomplished."
"Review" by , "Haunting and earthy, this deeply felt tale of love and loss is told by Shed, a half-breed bisexual Indian....Spanbauer fuses raunchy dialogue, pathos, local color, heartbreak and a serious investigation of racism in this stunning narrative."
"Review" by , "Spanbauer's masterful plot is delightfully unpredictable and compelling."
"Synopsis" by , Set in the gritty, often brutal frontier of the Old West, this story tells of Shed, a half-breed bisexual boy who makes his living at the Indian Head Hotel — the town's outrageously pink whorehouse.
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