How to Cuss in Western: And Other Missives from the High Desert

by Michael P. Branch

Where nature writing meets humor--a racuous and hilarious look at life in the high desert of Nevada, from the author of Raising Wild and Rants from the Hill.

Edward Abbey encouraged his readers to “be loyal to what you love, be true to the Earth, and fight your enemies with passion and laughter.” Here is Michael Branch’s response. Full of clear-eyed explorations of the natural world, witty cultural observations, and heart-warming family connections, How to Cuss in Western is a cranky and hilarious love letter of sorts to the western Great Basin Desert of Nevada.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Memoir, Environment, Westerns

224 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 28, 2018

Reviews

[Valerity (Val)]

DNF

[Literary Redhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌵🌵🌵🌵🌵

HOW TO CUSS IN WESTERN by Michael P. Branch is a book to sink into with a good libation and several luxurious hours. I love the West and Branch’s poetic and comic essays on life with his wife and two daughters at 6,000 feet in the remote high Nevada desert made me feel I was back in God’s Country. Lyrical, ever witty, even pastoral, this Western ode is an eloquent revelation of little seen desert life. Highly recommended!

#HowToCussInWestern #NetGalley

Thanks to Roost Books and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

[Maggie Carr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second Michael P. Branch and now I have a comparison - it's like a High Elevation Nevada setting similar to Mike Rowe. Does that make sense? Like, each chapter is separate but together they string an ongoing daily life narrative similar to a biography but also packed full of things you've never wondered about. I found the flatulence section quite intriguing and tried to read it out loud to my family. They weren't nearly as impressed as I.

[Carla Beebe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a fan of comedic literature, and I wasn't entirely thrilled about the prospect of reading this book. I probably would not have chosen to read it if had not been our May 2020 Bookclub selection.

Contrary to my preconceived notion, I found this book to be genuinely funny, interesting, and educational. The author's love of family and the environment is the heart of each of these intertwined short stories. Well worth reading.

[SundayAtDusk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh my, between Michael Branch and Julia Reed, this is turning into boozy book week. No surprise there with Mr. Branch since I read his 2017 book Rants from the Hill: On Packrats, Bobcats, Wildfires, Curmudgeons, a Drunken Mary Kay Lady, and Other Encounters with the Wild in the High Desert; which also had no shortage of alcohol consumption. Like the last book, however, the booze talk tends to lessen as the book progresses.

Unfortunately, there is more profanity in this book, though. Yes, I read the title, but western cussing ended up being a lot of colorful phrases no one would find offensive any longer. And, no, I don't expect the author to talk or act like a saint, but using alcohol or profanity for laughs seems to suggest there are no real laughs to be had. (Of course, if he drinks and swears a lot, he may not have been looking for laughs, but only making his stories more realistic.)

Actually, this book isn't that amusing, and some of the stories I didn't even read due to their nature. Talking about nature, last year's book did a far better job of capturing the intense feelings of living in the desert, too. Not that there weren't some good stories in this one. Personally, I liked the ones about the Muppets, the concert for the homeless people and the road captain, to name a few. There are indeed some gems. Plus, it's always nice to hear what the ladies in the family are up to.

If you are trying to decide between the ranting or the cussing book, however, I would go with last year's ranting one. It provides a much better picture of high dessert life and Michael Branch's day-to-day life. This year's book makes him seem much more like an eccentric with limited human contact outside of his family. Yet amusingly, his four pages of acknowledgments listed more friends than any other acknowledgment pages I have ever seen. No, Julia Reed is not mentioned as one of his friends. I checked. :)

(Note: I received a free ARC of this book from Amazon Vine.)

[Stephanie Pieck · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of personal essays is delightful and thought-provoking. The author lives with his family in a passive solar home on a hill in the high desert of Nevada. From this vantage point, he offers a clear-eyed, curmudgeonly take on a range of topics: fences, fart jokes, hedgehogs, hurling stuff (and the catharsis such action brings), silence, vanity license plates, and those twin icons of American fantasy and popular culture: cowboys and aliens.
The author's voice is a bit academic; he loves throwing around fifty-dollar words as much as he loves throwing stuff off his hilltop when he's frustrated. At first, I wondered how such a voice would be able to make me laugh, since the author claims his heritage as a humorist. In fact, I almost tossed the book aside without finishing the first essay. (Figuratively, of course, since I was reading an audio version on a disgustingly expensive electronic device I didn't want to replace any time soon.) My patience was rewarded, though, because as soon as the author unraveled the history of fart jokes and the social taboo against public flatulence with the seriousness of a man delivering a doctoral thesis, I didn't want to put the book down. Besides, the meaning of most big words can be figured out from the context those words are set in. For anything that's left after that figuring, keep a cell phone handy so you can ask Alexa or Siri to look them up for you.

[Schuyler Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael P. Branch manages to make the Great Basin Desert of Nevada sound like nirvana in his book of essays, “How to Cuss in Western.” I reveled in discussions about neighborliness, living on Ranting Hill, throwing things off of Ranting Hill, biting wind, gnawing insects, flatulence and urination in wide-open spaces, whiskey and cheap beer, fires that scare the crap out of you, rocks and woody shrubs, threatening animals with charisma, and the quiet life of solitude.

Rest assured, Mr. Branch, clever and humorous as your discussions are, I won’t be moving next to you any time soon. It’s hard enough to negotiate the manic freeways and slog through the incessant rain where I live in Northwest Oregon. I cuss enough right here, and the natives are even more hilarious.

Branch teaches literature at the University of Nevada, Reno, and I’m sure his classes are loaded with students eager to gain his wisdom, insight, and humorous outlook. The book is well written and full of erudite information, most of it comical. So I will be enjoying more of his books to, if for no other reason, gain funny stuff to steal for my own writing.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of this book caught my interest. How to Cuss in Western had me laughing at Branch’s antics and his interpretation of life in the desert. Thoughts of living in the high desert have never seemed feasible with the extreme weather, but Branch makes the desert look appealing with his descriptions of nature and local history. Overall, this collection covers such topics as how a desert rat gets a “redneck promotion” of road captain, the Shark mountain, an interesting visit to the the DMV, The Lone Tree, setting up a Leprechaun trap and the parental decision to get a pet hedgehog. I enjoyed this collection so much, I just purchased and started reading Rants from the Hill. Thank you NetGalley for the advance review copy.

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Branch is such a gifted writer, and he does an excellent job of bringing humor to all situations. The reason for the lower rating is because this particular book was really hit and miss for me. There were gems I loved (Imagining Shark Mountain, Shit Happens, My First Rodeo, Don't Fence Me In), but there were pieces in between that really threw me off (How to Cuss in Western, IH8 DMV). I would have loved to have a stronger theme that tied them all together. That said, I'm definitely a fan of Branch's take on life in the desert.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filled with laugh out loud moments; Branch certainly succeeds at drawing you in with humor and sharing his awe of the high desert. "The Lone Tree" is phenomenal. "Desert Flood" is terrifying. The rodeo clown captures the essence of the people living in and shaped by the west: big hearted, brave, and facing nature's power.

[Daniel Adler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, humorous "nature writing" essays that take us around the hills of Reno's high desert. A template for writing that's fun and easy to read--while informative and even dense--in a genre that often takes itself too seriously.

[Lada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another collection of humorous essays about life in the high desert. If one is too sappy, the next one will be dry. Sufficient variety that one is bound to find a few that resonate.

[Jill Sanford]

New favorite nonfiction

[Jennifer Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just OK. I liked the idea but his stories just didn’t pull me in all the way.

[Nova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty and laugh out loud funny.

[Ted Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable. The author loves the baron landscape in which he lives and it shows.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I so enjoyed this collection of essays. And how can you not love the title?!

[Sara Goldenberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not super-outdoorsy so it wasn't all that interesting to me. But if you are, it's well-written.

[Marrysparkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED THIS BOOK!! THIS AUTHOR IS so shrewd, witty, gloriously descriptive in his musings about being a self-proclaimed desert rat - a delightfully philosophical one at that. Cant wait to read his other books!

[Spacecat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book as much as Raising Wild & Rants. These books are probably my favorite books I’ve read in last year or two.

[Marc Oxoby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Branch’s How To Cuss In Western is the third such collection of essays by Branch, and if you’ve read the previous books, you know what to expect from this one. As with the other books, the author explores life in the high desert of Northern Nevada while delving into subjects ranging from ecology, to family, to Western literature, to the odd nature of people who choose to live in such rugged areas. He does so with stylistic aplomb and a deep affection for each of these subjects. And also with a lot of humor. While he is capable of writing quite seriously about important subjects, as he does in “Desert Flood,” Branch has come to be known as a humorist for good reason. His wit is sardonic and smart, and frequently had me laughing out loud. “Will the Real Fake John Muir Please Stand Up?” is one that I keep returning to and it’s never not hysterical. All in all, a really fun book, but also one that you’re likely to learn a bit from.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the Goodreads blurb:
Where nature writing meets humor--a racuous and hilarious look at life in the high desert of Nevada, from the author of Raising Wild and Rants from the Hill.

Edward Abbey encouraged his readers to “be loyal to what you love, be true to the Earth, and fight your enemies with passion and laughter.” Here is Michael Branch’s response. Full of clear-eyed explorations of the natural world, witty cultural observations, and heart-warming family connections, How to Cuss in Western is a cranky and hilarious love letter of sorts to the western Great Basin Desert of Nevada.

I usually shy away from short stories and essay collections, but this one was consistently readable, thought provoking and funny. I have ordered Raising Wild and Rants from the Hill and they will probably end up on our Read-alouds Shelf.

This was book #11 on our 2019 Read-alouds list.

[Natalie Allin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Who in the hell would want to call Reno home? ...the lovers, the dreamers, and me.”