Bless the Beasts & Children: A Novel

From the author of The Homesman, Glendon Swarthout’s Bless the Beasts & Children is the classic coming-of-age novel that explores the fabric of the American ideal—as seen through the eyes of rebellious youth.

“Send us a boy—we’ll send you a cowboy”: It doesn’t matter if the kid hates the sight of horses. Or if he still sucks his thumb and wets the bed. He’s got to be taught to toe the line. To measure up. To dig in his spurs—because that’s the way things are at the Box Canyon Boys Camp in Arizona.

Based on the adventures of the author’s own son, Bless the Beasts & Children tells a tragicomic tale of a group of disturbed teenaged boys from over-privileged families who are sent by their inattentive parents to camp in hopes that their lazy, urban kids will be toughened up in the cowboy program. Complications arise, but these problem boys band together to take up an important cause.

In this remarkable novel, Glendon Swarthout presents an electrifying portrait of six adolescent “misfits” on a desperate mission to save themselves. And, in a society dedicated to one narrow view of success, they learn something important about what it means to be a man. This is “an exciting mission-pursuit story with an engrossing cast of characters” (Publishers Weekly).