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Delusions and Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West
In these new and selected essays, Mark Sundeen recounts two decades of political activism, outdoor exploration, and empathic curiosity. He was both witness to and active participant in pivotal cultural and political events of the new millennium, from Howard Dean’s presidential campaign to the Iraq War protests and the NoDAPL uprising in Standing Rock. But what brings these large phenomena into humanistic focus is the cast of idiosyncratic people he meets. Using first-person reportage, well-crafted storytelling, and wry, self-deprecating humor, Sundeen’s keen observations illustrate what everyday life is like for people in the contemporary American West, with all their systemic precarities and individual triumphs.
ACCLAIM
“Delusions and Grandeur is about what it means to be a man in the West—but if that conjures images of steely-eyed cowboys and oilmen, put those out of your mind. What struck me most is just how gorgeously tenderhearted, vulnerable, and emotionally engaged these essays and their characters are. If a smallish group of men have been the main perpetrators of the destruction of our planet, a larger group, including many of those in this fine book, have been their victims—and survivors.”—Vauhini Vara, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Immortal King Rao
“This is the West as seen through the eyes of ordinary people with extraordinary connections who have explored politics, literature, environment, and the act of being human. Sundeen has an uncanny knack for finding himself in the thick of things. Once there, he dives deep and reports back with an unerring eye. As a writer, I’m exhausted imagining what he went through to get these stories, but as a reader I’m carried along and come away feeling like I’ve been everywhere.”—Craig Childs, author of Tracing Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau
“A riveting and powerful collection of essays that asks the reader to reconsider the connection between landscape, culture, and the past, Mark Sundeen’s latest book arises from a lifetime of experience not only in western places but with those who build their lives amid the boom and bust born from a region marked as much by beauty as a lack of it. It’s the people that matter to Sundeen, those passing through, those staying on, those leaving, longing, coming, touring, hawking, and forever hoping. Long disabused of any romantic notion of what it means to live in the West, Sundeen stands beside all those who populate his essays, bewildered, angry, but never without wonder roped to tenderness. Delusions and Grandeur frames a window through which we see how we far we have traveled, why we have arrived at this moment, and how much farther we still must go.”—Jennifer Sinor, author of Sky Meditations on Loving a Broken World
“Mark Sundeen is a brilliant, funny, poetic guide through the landscapes of the American West, attuned to the dangers of white masculinity while disarmingly gentle in his critique. Each essay in this collection is a prism through which the desire to escape the world looks suspiciously like the desire to find one’s place in it. This is a coming-of-age book in the least-cheesy sense of the term.”—Sierra Crane Murdoch, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Yellow Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Sundeen is an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Montana, and the author of four other books about the American The In Search of the Good Life in Today’s America; Car Camping; The Making o
ACCLAIM
“Delusions and Grandeur is about what it means to be a man in the West—but if that conjures images of steely-eyed cowboys and oilmen, put those out of your mind. What struck me most is just how gorgeously tenderhearted, vulnerable, and emotionally engaged these essays and their characters are. If a smallish group of men have been the main perpetrators of the destruction of our planet, a larger group, including many of those in this fine book, have been their victims—and survivors.”—Vauhini Vara, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Immortal King Rao
“This is the West as seen through the eyes of ordinary people with extraordinary connections who have explored politics, literature, environment, and the act of being human. Sundeen has an uncanny knack for finding himself in the thick of things. Once there, he dives deep and reports back with an unerring eye. As a writer, I’m exhausted imagining what he went through to get these stories, but as a reader I’m carried along and come away feeling like I’ve been everywhere.”—Craig Childs, author of Tracing Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau
“A riveting and powerful collection of essays that asks the reader to reconsider the connection between landscape, culture, and the past, Mark Sundeen’s latest book arises from a lifetime of experience not only in western places but with those who build their lives amid the boom and bust born from a region marked as much by beauty as a lack of it. It’s the people that matter to Sundeen, those passing through, those staying on, those leaving, longing, coming, touring, hawking, and forever hoping. Long disabused of any romantic notion of what it means to live in the West, Sundeen stands beside all those who populate his essays, bewildered, angry, but never without wonder roped to tenderness. Delusions and Grandeur frames a window through which we see how we far we have traveled, why we have arrived at this moment, and how much farther we still must go.”—Jennifer Sinor, author of Sky Meditations on Loving a Broken World
“Mark Sundeen is a brilliant, funny, poetic guide through the landscapes of the American West, attuned to the dangers of white masculinity while disarmingly gentle in his critique. Each essay in this collection is a prism through which the desire to escape the world looks suspiciously like the desire to find one’s place in it. This is a coming-of-age book in the least-cheesy sense of the term.”—Sierra Crane Murdoch, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Yellow Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Sundeen is an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Montana, and the author of four other books about the American The In Search of the Good Life in Today’s America; Car Camping; The Making o
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240 pages, Paperback
Published February 18, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 31, 2025
Loooved some of these essays, specifically the meditation on hypocrisy of the state-funded drone development complex in North Dakota and the one on the consequences of growth and rural gentrification in and around Moab, UT. The missed connection vibe of “The Shinglewide”, coupled with vibes of bearing witness to change and heartache and coming into one’s own life, made me v emotional.
March 4, 2026
Not only did I learn a lot from reading "Delusions and Grandeur," but I enjoyed Mark Sundeen's prose.
The essays about the veteran Noah, beset with the PTSD that would end his life, the Jack London impersonator, drones, and the protests over the Standing Rock pipeline both informed and engaged me. However, the essay "Potter and Keats" stood out by dint of its elegiac tone, poetic polysyndetons, and profound insights. An example: "I for one am grateful that Potter poured his soul into jumping off cliffs instead of, say, writing short stories, or op-eds, or getting an MFA, or strumming indie rock. For all the cliches that artists spin about risking their lives for their art, here's someone who actually risked it, and the job of explaining himself to the rest of us is not his, any more than the task of explaining her songs lies with the nightingale."
Less successful (to me) is Sundeen's final (and relatively lengthy) essay entitled "The Shinglewide," in which he attempts a kind of "High Fidelity" retrospective of his love life. While the sweetness, strength, and serenity of the essay's conclusion resonates, I wonder if much of this personal reportage would be better left in Sundeen's journal or with his therapist. It was almost as if Sundeen is trying to reassure himself that his former skinny, non-athletic self is now the outdoorsy version of a sexy (albeit semi-domesticated) beast.
Still, a lovely and wise collection of a writer with an interesting and necessary perspective -grateful to have read it.
The essays about the veteran Noah, beset with the PTSD that would end his life, the Jack London impersonator, drones, and the protests over the Standing Rock pipeline both informed and engaged me. However, the essay "Potter and Keats" stood out by dint of its elegiac tone, poetic polysyndetons, and profound insights. An example: "I for one am grateful that Potter poured his soul into jumping off cliffs instead of, say, writing short stories, or op-eds, or getting an MFA, or strumming indie rock. For all the cliches that artists spin about risking their lives for their art, here's someone who actually risked it, and the job of explaining himself to the rest of us is not his, any more than the task of explaining her songs lies with the nightingale."
Less successful (to me) is Sundeen's final (and relatively lengthy) essay entitled "The Shinglewide," in which he attempts a kind of "High Fidelity" retrospective of his love life. While the sweetness, strength, and serenity of the essay's conclusion resonates, I wonder if much of this personal reportage would be better left in Sundeen's journal or with his therapist. It was almost as if Sundeen is trying to reassure himself that his former skinny, non-athletic self is now the outdoorsy version of a sexy (albeit semi-domesticated) beast.
Still, a lovely and wise collection of a writer with an interesting and necessary perspective -grateful to have read it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews