BE A MAN: Raised in the Shadow of Cowboys

Reviews

“Savvy author and journalist Russell Rowland’s revealing memoir BE A MAN belongs on the shelf of anyone of any gender who cares about the culture of “the West” and how that now impacts Americans everywhere. Rowland reveals truths and terrors behind the myths Americans are fed by movies and TV, myths and consequences that have impacted our lives in this 21st Century. This is a personal as well as a political and cultural exposure of how we all ended up where we are now, all told with Rowland’s honest, savvy, critical yet loving eye.”

– James Grady, Montana native & creator of movie and TV’s CONDOR  spy sagas

“Russell Rowland’s new book is a searching and sweeping narrative of what it means to become a man in the American West, where his own story of growing up there runs alongside the complicated history of his home state, Montana. Russell reveals how far from Western mythos being raised there can be, but also how much of manhood is coded by those same myths, ones that contribute to the broken manhood of “our mountain men, our Unabomber, or our body-slamming Congressman, and producing art that reflects the same old stereotypes.

Be A Man: Raised in the Shadow of Cowboys is art with a new angle, an invigorating vision for what it means to be a real man in the real west rather than play one on TV or for political theater. Russell offers a tonic masculinity born of grappling with the hard and beautiful truths of what it means to grow up a real man in the real West. It’s a  potent vision for “another new West,” one with immeasurable benefits for all of us.”

– Bridget Quinn, author of Broad Strokes and Portrait of a Woman

“In Be A Man: Raised in the Shadow of Cowboys, Russell Rowland’s courageous self-anatomy exposes the baleful consequences of tight-lipped stoicism, the fallout from traditions of blind perseverance. That nuanced title opens itself to seemingly endless ironies that play, in variations, across Rowland’s childhood, adolescence, and earlier adulthood.

Through it all, Rowland, who gradually discovers his identity as a writer and accepts his fraught legacy, pleads for a much broader definition of masculinity, particularly masculinity in Montana as reflected in a tragic history of noxious cliches. As he insists, to be a man also means to embrace and even celebrate a rich emotional life and language, one that depends upon self-reflection, risk-taking, exposure, and speech.”

–O. Alan Weltzien, author of Savage West: The Life and Fiction of Thomas Savage

“Growing up on the East Coast everyone I knew dreamed of “the West.” In this fascinating and vulnerable book, Russell Rowland tells us what it means to truly live in the West, laying bare all the myths and exploring the damage those myths have done, especially to boys and men, although not exclusively to them. 

Be A Man sheds light on the root causes of the state’s high suicide rates, and the impact of alcoholism on such isolated land. Despite the beauty, Rowland describes the harsh work it takes to live in such a wide open, rural space. This mythic landscape comes at a cost, and Rowland shows us how easily one can be lost there, especially an artistic, sensitive child. This poignant memoir is raw and vulnerable, revealing the cost of living a life defined by the idea that a western man is a man of strength and stoicism above all else.”

–Mary Jane Nealon, author of Beautiful Unbroken