This is a story about a boy who wanted to be kind and loving but was raised by wolves and monsters who taught him to choose violence and aggression. As the boy grew to be a man, he wanted to be a protector of women but ended up being what girls and women needed protection from. As a young adult, he saw women as his to take. He lied, cheated, and scammed his way through life until he couldn’t.

This is his moving account of discovering healthy masculinity from the inside out. His journey has been sensational at times and unbelievable at others, but for many readers, it has been absolutely inspiring. Will the hungry wolves outlast the desire to be loving and beautiful? Can men truly change? What role can men play in making the world safe for women?

In his searing memoir RAISED BY WOLVES, POSSIBLY MONSTERS, Michael Swerdloff’s story is a harrowing portrait of a sensitive soul corrupted by his poisonous abuse at the hands of a misogynistic father and sociopathic brother. Under their tutelage, he morphs from a tender-hearted child into a predatory lothario who views women as little more than objects for his gratification. In stark, unsparing prose, Swerdloff recounts his descent into depravity, from his sexual assault of a classmate—”I squeezed harder than what felt natural or enjoyable. She clamped her right arm down, not realizing that this would keep my hand firmly on her breast”—to his emotionally abusive relationship with a girlfriend, Leighton, whom he manipulates into submission at every turn.

Swerdloff’s road to redemption begins in a mental institution following a suicide attempt, and in many ways, his story hews to a familiar recovery arc: a rock-bottom moment followed by a gradual awakening through therapy, 12-step work, and acts of service. Where RAISED BY WOLVES deviates from the typical redemption narrative is in its uncompromising self-interrogation and its nuanced exploration of the ways in which toxic masculinity is conditioned and reinforced by a misogynistic culture.

In one of the memoir’s most powerful sections, Swerdloff volunteers at a rape crisis center, sharing his story of transformation with survivors of sexual assault. These gut-wrenching encounters force him to confront the true impact of his misdeeds and galvanize his commitment to being an ally and advocate for women. Swerdloff is unsparing in his self-assessment, acknowledging how deeply he has been conditioned to derive arousal from the degradation of women: “I wanted my body to change in response to the way my mind was, but that’s not what happened, at least not at that point. At times, I would feel rage at my own body for its reaction to hearing tragic and brutal violent experiences.”

While Swerdloff’s prose occasionally feels raw and unpolished, these stylistic choices ultimately serve to underscore the intensity of his emotional journey and lend his story a sense of urgency and authenticity. The rough edges of his language might be seen as a reflection of the unfinished nature of the work he is calling us to do: the lifelong task of untangling ourselves from the twisted values of patriarchy. There is an immediacy to Swerdloff’s voice that mirrors the messy, nonlinear process of personal transformation, as when he describes his reaction to a transformative spiritual experience: “I felt confused and disoriented, and this little drip from my nostrils continued.”

Moreover, while some readers may crave more detail about certain aspects of Swerdloff’s journey, such as his spiritual awakening under the guidance of the enigmatic healer Betsy, the brevity of these passages suggests that this is not meant to be a prescriptive “how-to” guide but rather a call to action, an invitation for each reader to undertake their own journey of self-discovery. As Swerdloff himself notes, “Like everything else on the spiritual awareness and development journey, we always return to the same thing, be present and pay attention. Your Higher Self will instruct you on what to do with that information when you pay attention while present.”

Indeed, the power of RAISED BY WOLVES lies not in its literary polish but in the raw courage of Swerdloff’s self-interrogation and the urgency of his message. In laying bare his own struggles and transformations, Swerdloff invites us to confront the ways in which we have all been shaped by a culture of toxic masculinity—and to imagine a different way of being in the world. “The women in our lives need us to be more than our shame, self-hatred, and violence,” he writes. “They need us to step out of our pain, trauma, and numbness and step into being the men we were born to be before toxic masculinity squashed it out of us.” The unvarnished quality of his writing serves to underscore the book’s central theme: that the work of unmaking patriarchy’s harms is a raw, messy, and essential endeavor—one that requires us to confront uncomfortable truths about ourselves and our society.

RAISED BY WOLVES, POSSIBLY MONSTERS is a challenging, often uncomfortable read, but its fundamental compassion and hard-won insights make it a vital addition to the literature on toxic masculinity. Swerdloff’s story offers hope that even the most deformed spirits can be renewed, and that the cycle of abuse can be broken one transformed heart at a time.

Raw, compassionate, and perceptive, Michael Swerdloff’s memoir RAISED BY WOLVES, POSSIBLY MONSTERS is a vital excavation of toxic masculinity’s rot—and an urgent call for individual and cultural transformation.

~Edward Sung for IndieReader