How to Be a Man

A girl whose self-worth revolves around masculinity a bartender who loses her sense of safety a woman who compares men to plants and a boy who shoots his cranked-out father. These are a few of the hard-scrabble characters in Tamara Linses debut short story collection How to Be a Man. Set in contemporary Wyoming-the myth of the West taking its toll-these stories reveal the lives of tough-minded girls and boys self-reliant women and men struggling to break out of their lonely lives and the emotional havoc of their families to make a connection to build a life despite the odds. How to Be a Man falls within the tradition of Maile Meloy Tom McGuane and Annie Proulx.