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Nickolas Butler's Latest Novel Delves Into Hard Truths

Harper Collins Publishers

Humans are not perfect.  We all know that very well by the time we get to be adults.  But part of the pain of adolescence is coming to terms with the fact that our parents, whom we might have idolized in our young childhood, are as imperfect as anyone.

Wisconsin writer Nickolas Butler’s characters experience some hard truth about people’s imperfections in The Hearts of MenHis novel spans several generations, people who are all connected -  with each other, with a central character named Nelson and with a northern Wisconsin scout camp. 

Butler, who lives in the Eau Claire area, wrote the novel based on his experiences as a Boy Scout and as a son who had a dramatic change of relationship with his father after learning of his affair as a teenager.

"It just really shattered my worldview, and informed my own kind of personal philosophies, and ethics and morality, and it shattered the notions of who my dad was.... He was always my hero, and suddenly he really wasn't," he explains.

Butler also notes that reading The Lord of the Flies for the first time as an adult and as a father impacted him and the way he approached this novel. The Hearts of Men is full of themes, such as the imperfect definitions of good and evil, family, fidelity, morality, the benefits and challenges of lifelong friendships, and redemption.

For Butler, having this all centered around Camp Chippewa and the character's experiences there reflects the value he still sees in such programs. "I think we're losing our connection to the natural world," he says. "I think kids don't know how to build a fire or sharpen a knife, and to me that's still really important."

Even though the novel dives into heavy topics inspired by his own childhood, Butler found himself feeling nostalgic. "A weird thing about working through this book was that I was beginning to have sentimental feelings for boy scouts, for my father, for camping, for baseball," he says.