Charlie LeDuff

US Guys is participatory journalism at its finest. A modern-day Dean Moriarty, LeDuff pulls back the façade of the American Dream one layer at a time, uncovering the reality lived by the average American man.
LeDuff experiences what his characters endure, so he can accurately depict their stories and find the dust in the details. Like a movie script, LeDuff sets up each vignette of American male experience with vivid descriptions, and his biting prose shares similarities with Hemingway’s poetic brevity and Hunter Thompson’s gonzo guile.
From riding in a gay rodeo in Oklahoma City to playing football for a C-level pro football team in Amarillo, Texas, LeDuff lays it on the line for this story. It’s not the America known to the suits, swingers and Park Avenue playboys; instead, it’s the vast majority of Americans who, like scrap pieces, are tossed aside because they don’t fit the public’s normal puzzle.