This book is transgressive to say the least. It tackles a lot of taboos that our industry is kinda more familiar with than the general public. If you would like an extensive list of trigger warnings I would hazard a guess that this book is probably not for you: it’s fucked up. I wanted to write this review for a while but I shied away from it because of the subject matter. Then Tom died.
I wanted to write this as a homage to a man that I deeply appreciate the legacy of. Tom Spanbauer taught dangerous writing in Portland to the likes of Chuck Palahniuk and Monica Drake. I still am waiting to outgrow my fascination with this particular epoch. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without this man’s legacy.
I couldn’t read this book when I was working at the dungeon because I was finding it too harrowing to read while I was actively working. But, as intentionally fucked up as this book is, it is also beautiful. The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon is a western. I have not read many titles in this genre myself, though I have had Burroughs’ (a man I know know to be a little more problematic than originally thought) Dead Roads on the TBR list for a while – but I haven’t gotten around to it probably because it’s going to prove equally as problematic. I think growing up queer and rural kinda tarnishes the majesty of the western genre for me. The Man Who Fell In Love with the Moon follows main character Shed through a family saga that is so expansive it will make your head spin. Shed becomes the only male sex worker at a frontier brothel after his mother dies. We follow Shed on a path of self discovery and turmoil that is equal parts heartbreaking and stunning. I am glad I waited until after I was unceremoniously asked to clear out my locker at the dungeon before reading this saga. I still sing a line that is sung by the madam in this book often, “Ain’t it delicious being this pernicious.”
As intentionally fucked up as this book is,
it is also beautiful.
The madam of the brothel that Shed works from the back of is embroiled in an ongoing moral battle with local Mormons. The madam ends up running a competition offering a reward to anyone who can spell “pernicious” … spoiler alert, no one but Shed can. The expected whorephobia is present within the novel’s frontier town setting and eventually the brothel is burned down. This book takes big swings at conservative American morality that are still relevant nearly 35 years after publishing. The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon has not aged gracefully but I don’t think that was ever intended. Tom was a queer man and this book is a great example of a queer author writing about sex workers with diligence and care. Yes, this book is fucked up. That is the point of “Dangerous Writing” – the style Tom developed and taught.
Some of Tom’s disseminated writing advice includes:
“As my writing teacher always said: Fiction is the lie that tells the truth truer.”
“Although the assignment is to write a personal story, you have the permission to lie. If you’re writing about a moment that after you were different and you don’t quite remember the details, then lie. If you’re trying to remember an event you don’t quite remember, and there’s a lot you don’t quite remember, then make it up.”Tom then compares this to Irish painter Francis Bacon’s art practice:
“What Bacon says about his process is that he wants to wash the realistic appearance of the photo back onto his nervous system. He wants to distort the image to its extreme, but in the distortion, bring it back to a recording of the appearance. The result of Bacon’s process is a startlingly violent, raw image of a sexually repressed, power corrupted, manipulative patriarchal monster with bad teeth."
Tom was a queer man and this book is a great example of a queer author writing about sex workers with diligence and care.
To write dangerously is to write like Francis Bacon paints. The writer does not stand behind a thin veil and record experience. The writer is an artist, is a magician who puts on a mask. The mask is the author reinventing his own story, looking through fresh eyes at his own invention. Oscar Wilde said if you want to know the truth, ask the person with the mask on. The Dangerous Writer puts on her Dangerous Writing mask and like a true magician, starts to make magic. She intentionally cultivates among her characters what could possibly go wrong, then exaggerates it.
The Dangerous Writer manipulates, creates tension and drama where in “real life” there was no tension and drama. He connives, dishes, exaggerates, does not report the representational image, but rather fucks it up by washing the image back onto his nervous system. Distorts the truth. Says it wrong, says it weird, says it backwards. Rips down the screens and the veils we all live through. She weaves the universal within the ordinary. But most of all, the Dangerous Writer lies. And lies and lies and lies.”
I wish I had been privileged enough to learn from Tom himself, but his legacy has made me the writer that I am today. I am grateful for my whore community, that I can continue to write dangerously with them.
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