Tamara Linse

How to Be a Man Tamara Linse 1st edition

?Never acknowledge the fact that you?re a girl, and take pride when your guy friends say, ?You?re one of the guys.? Tell yourself, ?I am one of the guys,? even though, in the back of your mind, a little voice says, ?But you?ve got girl parts.? ? 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 Linse?s 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.