In 1967, seventeen-year-old Rigby John Klusener escapes the narrow confines of his strict, religious farming family and the bigoted community in which he has grown up to hitchhike to San Francisco to discover life's mysteries and his own identity. By the author of The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon. tarred 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)

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