Review of Tom Spanbauer’s I Loved You More: “The Bermuda Triangle of Love,” Melissa Duclos for Book Trib
Contained within the simple geometry of a love triangle are all the ingredients for an engrossing plot. There are characters (desired and desiring, therefore compelling); conflict (fights and lies and changes of heart); and resolution (someone will win, someone will lose, the triangle will be broken apart). Is it any wonder, then, that we return to these stories again and again?
In his newest novel, I Loved You More (Hawthorne Books, April) Tom Spanbauer manages to give readers a fresh look at this well-worn story. Spanbauer, whose works explore issues of sexual identity, race, and family, is the author of four previous novels and the founder of Dangerous Writing. Ben, the narrator of I Loved You More, explains the appeal of the love triangle: “With three you go directly back to the father and the mother and the child. Or this: a parent and two children. In either case, you’re back to what’s most fundamental about you: who has the love and who’s going to get it.”
...While Shakespeare offered us cross-dressing as a way to push beyond the binary notion of love, Cunningham and now Spanbauer have given us a more complex view of human sexuality, and what it means to really love someone.
To read the entire review go to Book Trib.