I Loved You More
I Loved You More (Hawthorne Books, 2014) is a rich and expansive tale of love, sex, and heartbreak covering twenty-five years. At the heart of the story is a love triangle: two men, one woman. In 1980's New York, Ben forms a bond with his macho friend, Hank, who is straight. Ben is gay but has had occasional relationships with women. Almost a decade later in Portland, Oregon, a now-ill Ben falls for Ruth, his writing student. As Ben has found out with Hank, loving has its limits. Ben introduces Hank to Ruth, and the real trouble starts.
Set against a world of writers and artists, New York’s Lower East Side in the wild eighties, the drab confining Idaho of Ben’s youth, Portland in his middle age, and the many places in between, the complex world revealed in I Loved You More---written in the poisoned, lyrical voice of Ben---is the author’s most complex and wise novel to date.
PRAISE FOR I LOVED YOU MORE
"Intelligence, wit, generosity, love, wisdom, insight, humility, guts, heart-crushing truth and spirit-lifting grace—it’s all there in I Loved You More. This is Tom Spanbauer’s wrenching and beautiful masterpiece."
CHERYL STRAYED, Author of Wild
"Tom Spanbauer’s I Loved You More is the most important book on sexuality, love, and the low down of relationships that I have ever read. The brilliant language is an epic ballad so deeply rendered it killed me and resurrected me a page at a time. This book is not a love story. It guts the heart of the cliché love story and hands it back to you, beating. Love is the endless falling."
LIDIA YUKNAVITCH, Author of Dora: A Headcase
"A masterful novel of what becomes of us long after we’ve 'come of age' and done all the brave things we thought would save us. Tom Spanbauer’s pages pulse with life in all its messy beauty."
ARIEL GORE, Publisher of Hip Mama Magazine and author of How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights
Video Conceived and Directed by Mark Levine (www.prettyprettypictures.com)
Special Thanks to Kevin Meyer and Michael Sage Ricci for the collaboration, and to Cadens Johnson for the lovely music (cadens.bandcamp.com)
photo credit ©Brett Mann
Photo Credit: Viviana Trujillo
Now Is The Hour Book Tour, 2006
Wordstock Lit Fest 2013
Dangerous Writers Workshop Esalen 2012
Rome, 2009
I Loved You More
Tom Spanbauer is the critically acclaimed author and founder of Dangerous Writing. His five published novels Faraway Places, The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon, In The City Of Shy Hunters, Now Is The Hour, and I Loved You More (Hawthorne Books, April 2014), are notable for their combination of a fresh and lyrical prose style with solid storytelling.