The actor’s new book, ‘Prairie Man: My Little House Life & Beyond,’ hits shelves this summer
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(776x216:778x218):format(webp)/Dean-Butler-032524-37e301b70c0c47a6a952b138848b9620.jpg)
“Prairie Man, based on the title, is very centered around the Little House experience, and I draw from life experience that I got from Little House,” Butler said. “And there’s talk about different relationships with different people that I had on the show. My sense of those people. There is a lot of gratitude in the book.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(495x0:497x2):format(webp)/Dean-Butler-Memoir-Prairie-Man-My-Little-House-Life-and-Beyond-032524-376c6427435342faacffe201eebad93b.jpg)
Butler played Almanzo Wilder, the husband of Laura Ingalls Wilder, on the original NBC series, which ran from 1974 to 1982 and was based upon Ingalls Wilder’s beloved books for young readers. In Prairie Man, which features forewords from his former Little House costars Melissa Gilbert and Alison Arngrim, Butler goes deeper into his experiences on the show and his larger career, including some of its rough patches.
“There’s also some hurt feelings, some disappointments, some of things that maybe didn’t go the way I would’ve dreamed that they could go,” Butler said. “But in an experience that satisfied and has satisfied so many dreams in my life. Little House has been this massive gift.”
Butler also starred in the 1978 television film Forever, based on Judy Blume’s novel of the same name, and portrayed Hank Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He said, however, that Little House still endures, both for fans and for himself.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(526x0:528x2):format(webp)/Melissa-Gilbert-Dean-Butler-Little-House-on-the-Prairie-032524-2a6c856b6e9a4c65916b541197e1b108.jpg)
“There’s nothing with the significance in my life that matches what happened with Little House,” he said. “Because Little House touches this core of humanness that just endures…It was old when it was new.”
“It never has gone out of style because it was never in style,” he added. “There’s something so honest and pure about it that people continue to respond to it. And I hope that in the book, I’ve captured my total appreciation for that, and provided some perspective on the experience as well, as well as other parts of other parts of my life.”
Butler also shared why he feels the show still resonates with viewers 50 years later — it provides a “graceful” way to respond to the difficult moments of our lives.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(572x0:574x2):format(webp)/Dean-Butler-Little-House-on-the-Prairie-032524-3311ceca6871460a88eecfbbd9b85082.jpg)
“We all have choices in how we choose to live, how we deal with our successes and how we cope with our failures,” he said. “I don’t think there’s ever been a time in our American culture, in my lifetime, where we need graceful lessons in how to cope with failure, how we need to deal with disappointment.”
Prairie Man: My Little House Life & Beyond will be published by Citadel on June 25 and is now available for preorder.
