Men in the Making: Stories - Hardcover

Machart, Bruce

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0156034441 ISBN 13: 9780156034449

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011

Synopsis

From the critically acclaimed author of The Wake of Forgiveness—“a mesmerizing, mythic saga,” as described by the New York Times—come ten remarkable stories that uncover unexpected beauty in the struggles of the modern American male.

Like Richard Russo, Bruce Machart has a profound knowledge of the male psyche and a gift for conveying the absurdity and brutality of daily life with humor and compassion. Whether they find themselves walking the fertile farmland of south Texas, steering trucks through the suffocating sprawl of Houston, or turning logs into paper in the mills just west of the Sabine River, the men of these stories seek to prove themselves in a world that doesn’t always welcome them. Here are men whose furrows are never quite straight and whose hearts are near to bursting with all the desires they have been told they aren’t supposed to heed.

“Bruce Machart is one of our most ambitious and fearless young writers. With Men in the Making, he has composed a remarkable paean to the complex fragility of the American male. I read these stories in a state of tender amazement.”—Steve Almond, author of Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life

About this title

From the Back Cover

Bruce Machart s protagonists know work whether it s loading cedar logs into debarking drums or scouring the sludge from a drill rig s void tanks and they know denial, and self-denial, and compassion, because they re mostly good men undone by loss, and by their own resentments and shortcomings. Men in the Making is a stirring and impressive collection. Jim Shepard, author of You Think That s Bad

What I admire most about Bruce Machart s Men in the Making is everything. Filled with revelatory and often gritty truths about love and work and family and courage and also defeat, he has given the world one of the most powerful short story collections you will ever encounter. Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff and The Devil All the Time

Story by story by story, Bruce Machart gets his guys right: the crosswise emotions, the briar patch of thoughts suffered by men who either think too much or too little the misfires and self-deceptions and tall tales, the tragic goofiness of liking mistaken for loving, the need to hide under the covers until real life goes away. Men in the Making can t possibly be Mr. Machart s debut collection of stories, for these are the yarns of a young master of the form. Lee K. Abbott, author of All Things, All at Once

From the Inside Flap

From the critically acclaimed author of The Wake of Forgiveness a mesmerizing, mythic saga, as described by the New York Times come ten remarkable stories that uncover unexpected beauty in the struggles of the modern American male.

Like Richard Russo, Bruce Machart has a profound knowledge of the male psyche and a gift for conveying the absurdity and brutality of daily life with humor and compassion. Whether they find themselves walking the fertile farmland of south Texas, steering trucks through the suffocating sprawl of Houston, or turning logs into paper in the mills just west of the Sabine River, the men of these stories seek to prove themselves in a world that doesn t always welcome them. Here are men whose furrows are never quite straight and whose hearts are near to bursting with all the desires they have been told they aren t supposed to heed.

Bruce Machart is one of our most ambitious and fearless young writers. With Men in the Making, he has composed a remarkable paean to the complex fragility of the American male. I read these stories in a state of tender amazement. Steve Almond, author of Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0156034441
• ISBN 13: 9780156034449
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 190