A review by jeffmauch
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler

5.0

There's an awful lot that I love about this book, even with so many characters that are not just flawed, but unlikable. This is the story of three generations of men told through a few different narrators and set for the most part around a yearly trip to a Boy Scout camp. On the surface this doesn't sound like much, but I found this book hard to put down after the first couple chapters and it kept up to the very end. It starts in the 1960's and culminates in near present day and mostly in an examination of what it is to be a man, with a particular focus on raising boys, but from men with very different points of view. This book asks what it truly means to have principles and even to have a code of sorts and how having one and actually adhering to is are two very different things. This is a beautifully written novel that spoke to me in a number of ways, from the subtle references to Eau Claire, WI, where I lived for a few years in college, to the relationships among the scouts, a fraternity I belonged to at one point. This is the fourth book by Nikolas Butler that I've read and its far an away the best one. There's a beauty here, even when he's writing about the imperfect and fallible, both as young boys who are learning and as old men who should know better. While I can see and understand an issue or two others have pointed out in their reviews, specifically a late plot device that wasn't well received, I truly loved this book and I'm certain that even now in February, this will be on my short list of the best books I've read this year. 5/5