When Cowboys Come Home : Veterans, Authenticity, and Manhood in Post–World War II America

When Cowboys Come Home: Veterans, Authenticity, and Manhood in Post–World War II America is a cultural and intellectual history of the 1950s that argues that World War II led to a breakdown of traditional markers of manhood and opened space for veterans to reimagine what masculinity could mean. One particularly important strand of thought, which influenced later anxieties over “other-direction” and “conformity,” argued that masculinity was not defined by traits like bravery, stoicism, and competitiveness but instead by authenticity, shared camaraderie, and emotional honesty. To elucidate this challenge to traditional “frontiersman” masculinity, Aaron George presents three intellectual biographies of important veterans who became writers after the war: James Jones, the writer of the monumentally important war novel From Here to Eternity ; Stewart Stern, one of the most important screenwriters of the fifties and sixties, including for Rebel without a Cause ; and Edward Field, a bohemian poet who used poetry to explore his love for other men. Through their lives, George shows how wartime disabused men of the notion that war was inherently a brave or heroic enterprise and how the alienation they felt upon their return led them to value the authentic connections they made with other men during the war. Contents Preface: What We Bring Home Introduction: Hemingway’s Shadow Part 1 Cowboys on the Wartime Frontier 1 Never a Secondhand Man: James Jones and the Perils of Homecoming 2 The Big Noise: Stewart Stern’s Long March to Gar Naruah 3 The “Age of Heroes” Edward Field and Gay Authenticity in the Midst of War Part 2 Coming Home 4 The Hipster, the Prophet, and the Angel: Writers on the Edge of Eternity 5 The Men Who Came Running: James Jones and the Handy Writers’ Colony 6 Waiting for Peter Pan: Adulthood and How to Attain It 7 The Continuing Adventures of Icarus: Edward Field’s Life in the Postwar Closet Conclusion: A Nation of Gray Flannel Men Acknowledgments Notes Index About the Author When Cowboys Come Home shows how World War II changed the ways men thought about their roles in American society. For three writers who served--James Jones, Stewart Stern, and Edward Field--the war taught that manhood didn't have to be based on bravery and heroism, but could be defined by authenticity, sensitivity, and male camaraderie. Rebelling against the orthodoxies of their time, these veterans reimagined what roles a man could play and their work set the foundation for the revolutions of the sixties.