Men Behaving Badly: Stories by Tim O'Leary

O’Leary’s new collection, Men Behaving Badly, is a frank, unflinching follow-up to 2017’s successful Dick Cheney Shot Me in the Face. Here O’Leary does the impossible: dive into the psyches of the most destructive men– a stalker, a Klansman, public shooters—and creates narratives that neither rationalize, nor over-empathize. Refreshingly, these stories deliver both valuable insight, and perspective-enhancing humor. Employing fiercer social commentary and broader imagination, these new stories are concerned with justice, redemption, mockery of a decaying and violent culture and the often greedy men behind it. But for every grubby and disastrous man, there’s hope in the form of the unexpected: a centenarian whose invisibility is a weapon, a retired Montana rancher, a California tomato farmer, an elderly Black woman from Brooklyn with some powerful knitting needles, two fly fishermen—even the Earth herself. While nostalgia, humor, and blunt delivery hook the reader, O’Leary is dead serious about calling out liars, the indignities of American retirement, contagious gun violence, and other social and political ills.

Finalist for the High Plains Book Awards

"Full of prescient social commentary on American society today...clever, absurd, often hilarious, usually shocking tale. Nothing is off-limits here. Men Behaving Badly is much more than reading about a bunch of assholes. It’s an excellent book, one that’s realized—and important. Plus it will make you laugh."
—Charlie Denison, High Plains Book Awards

"Bristling with complex comic characters, the stories in O’Leary’s latest collection mine, with a feral brand of dark humor, many of our deepest afflictions: gun-violence, wealth disparity, mental health crises, political vacuousness, ad infinitum... This is an incriminating, daunting look in the mirror for a brand of masculinity that is "playing footsie with the grave digger."
—Chris Dombrowski, author of Body of Water

"Dissects the simmering rage within...page-turners, funny and irreverent."
—Shannon Reed, Pittsburgh Post Gazette

"O’Leary’s writing never loses sight of the bigger picture, even as it drills down into the intimate and the absurd which is a refreshing respite from the reality of tragedy. What emerges is a body of work that’s bitingly funny, often poignant, and always aware of the fragile, complicated connections that hold people—and communities—together."
—Compulsive Reader

About the Author

Born in Billings, Montana, Tim O’Leary is the author of Warriors, Workers, Whiners, & Weasels, Dick Cheney Shot Me in the Face, Men Behaving Badly, and The Corona Verses. He graduated from the University of Montana and received his MFA from Pacific University. Tim and his wife Michelle and their yellow lab Pinchot split their time between the Columbia Gorge in Washington state, and Santa Ynez, California.