When a Man's a Man (Summarized Edition)

When a Man's a Man charts a tenderfoot's apprenticeship on a Southwestern cattle ranch, treating the range as a forge for moral character. Wright mixes brisk episodes—roundups, bronc-breaking, and bunkhouse debate—with plainspoken, sermon-tinged prose. In dialogue with Owen Wister's The Virginian yet more explicitly didactic, the novel refocuses Progressive-Era concerns about class and masculinity...