Rick Bass, the author of thirty books, won the Story Prize for his collection For a Little While and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for his memoir Why I Came West. His work, which has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, and The Paris Review, among many other publications, and has been anthologized numerous times in The Best American Short Stories.
He has also won multiple O. Henry Awards and Pushcart Prizes, as well as NEA and Guggenheim fellowships. Bass lives in Montana's Yaak Valley, where he is a founding board member of the Yaak Valley Forest Council.
"For a Little While is a treasure trove . . . Rick Bass writes
fiction with almost mythic plot devices that unfold with an
authenticity that is startling . . . His talents are most evident
in his masterful short stories . . . As he demonstrates in story
after story, Bass can lift a common moment into a shared experience
that is universal."--Tim McNulty, Seattle Times
"A benchmark collection of stories by one of the most capable
practitioners of the form at work today . . . Long associated with
both the Deep South and the mountainous West, Bass writes movingly
of the land, weather, and place as well-even when the place isn't
always attractive, such as the dark edges of little Western towns,
'strange seams of disintegrating roughness on the perimeters.' All
of these elements come to the fore in the hundred-odd pages of new
stories that close the book, all wind-swept plains and grim
forests, mountain lions, badly loved girls, and wondrous
resolutions . . . Essential reading for students of the modern
American short story and some of the best work of a writer who is
at the top of his game."--Kirkus (Starred Review)
"A generous volume . . . For a Little While mines a deep-and deeply
American-vein of naturalism . . . Rick Bass's stories are models of
concision and understatement . . . His writing is restrained and
subtle . . . What makes prose like his so difficult to pull off is
it doesn't offer the writer anywhere to hide: Like the characters
he so frequently strands in the wilderness, Bass is left alone with
only his instincts and skill to prevent him from succumbing to the
elements . . . For a writer so intimately invested in the
elemental-in the intricacies and combined comforts and terrors of
earth, air, fire, and water-what Bass traffics in most frequently
is transcendence, those moments in which humans find some fragile
communion with something spiritual or otherworldly . . . In
crystalline imagery and unadorned language, Bass delivers a
powerful, affecting punch."--Steven W. Beattie, Globe and Mail
"A master craftsman."--Los Angeles Times
"A master craftsman . . . His spare, crystalline prose shows us the
foibles of the human heart and the majesty of nature . . . Bass's
inimitable art gives us hope . . . In his simple, direct
storytelling, we touch a profound nerve of yearning and belonging.
Bass intelligently and sensitively directs our attention to the
inevitability of loss and, with it, a kind of grace . . . These
stories teach us how to be humble. That is one detail of Bass's
great artistry with the short story that we dare not overlook . . .
In For a Little While, we see exactly how he uses the intimacy of
human contact to make his creations soar."--Arlice Davenport, The
Wichita Eagle
"A profoundly satisfying collection, a plunge into rich and varied
lives and landscapes. Bass's prose is charged with a lyrical
intensity rare in American fiction. The beauty of his sentences
recalls the stylistic finesse of McCarthy and Willa Cather, but he
does more than just write prettily. Reading Rick Bass offers the
deep pleasure of reinhabiting an older world, one that's not lost
so much as latent and usually unnoticed . . . Bass, like McCarthy
or Faulkner, reaches the universal by revealing the hidden
infinities of the particular, both in humans and the landscapes
they occupy . . . His metaphors proliferate with an inexhaustible
fecundity . . . Bass's short fiction features many ecstatic,
dangerous moments-a brush with a mountain lion at dusk, the surging
adrenaline of a firefighter in a collapsing house, a girl's pride
and confusion after killing her first elk. But he's also capable of
wry humor and great subtlety . . . Each line of Bass's
extraordinary prose brings you more awake."
--Nick Romeo, Chicago Tribune
"Glorious...Extraordinary...Heartbreaking...Transcendent...Bass is
an acknowledged master of the short story...His greatest gift, what
makes Rick Bass one of the very best writers we have, is his
understanding of the soft hearts within even the hardest
people."
--Porter Shreve, San Francisco Chronicle
"One of the truly impressive short story writers of his
generation."--George Plimpton
"Rick Bass joins the pantheon of contemporary masters . . . For a
Little While showcases his enigmatic talent, his passion for the
dispossessed, and a style of beguiling strangeness like no other .
. . Bass's gentle surrealism is reflected in iridescent sentences
that ebb and flow, opening spaces for deeper meaning to emerge. For
a Little While casts a spell both mythic and intimate, through the
words of a virtuoso." --Hamilton Cain, O, The Oprah Magazine
Praise for Rick Bass: "One of this country's most intelligent and
sensitive short story writers."--New York Times Book Review
"Durable and authentic . . . A writer who can both frighten and
amaze."--Jim Harrison
"Extravagant . . . Writing of this quality creates a stillness in
the mind."
--Time
"What a voice! True and desperate, and full of longing."
--Joy Williams
"For a Little While offers ongoing and fresh evidence that Bass
continues to be a master of the short story . . . These
heartbreaking, strangely elegiac yet hopeful stories give us the
range of what a story can be. Some bloom into tales with nearly all
the depth of a novel . . . Others serve as elegant grace notes to
entire lives . . . Still other stories work like high lonesome
ballads, wrangling loss, love, and hope into haunting harmonies
that chill to the bone. The opening story, 'Wild Horses, ' is as
deeply moving a story as I've read. It traces the slow path toward
the ability to love, despite scars that won't ever disappear . . .
The influences one can feel in these pages include not only the
realist troika of Carver and Ford and Tobias Wolff, but also
William Faulkner and Barry Hannah, Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez, and
Eudora Welty too; there's even Tolstoy of the late fables in which
people off another grid entirely bear witness to the fact of their
own cruel and graceful existence. But everywhere in this beautiful
summary collection is a singular voice, that of Rick Bass and Rick
Bass only, a writer whose early promise continues to be an enduring
gift to readers. Here's to thirty more years."--Bret Lott, Boston
Globe
"For a Little While is a perfect introduction to Bass's work,
though it's best read in small doses. To gulp too many of these
down at once would be overwhelming; they require savoring . . . To
say his stories have a sense of place does not do their immersive
power justice . . . The reader feels set down in the moment, highly
attuned to everything Bass describes . . . His descriptions are
vivid and visceral . . . [These] stories yield pure poetry and
scenes of such indelible imagery they cannot be forgotten."--Jill
Wilson, Winnipeg Free Press
"For a Little While showcases the better part of thirty years of
work from one of America's best short story writers, and to see it
collected between one set of covers is impressive. . . There isn't
a dud among these pieces . . . Clear, lyrical writing . . . An
excellent examination of the human heart."--Chris La Tray, Missoula
Independent
"For A Little While is nothing short of remarkable. In the powerful
lyricism of his exquisitely wrought prose, Rick Bass conveys not
only the ordinary thoughts and impulses of his characters but also
those moments of pure sensation--convincing in every physical,
mental, and emotional detail--when the intensity of life exists at
a pitch almost beyond language. Grace has always been the great,
elusive subject of his short fiction, and the extraordinary,
transcendent stories collected here pursue it in myriad and
seamless ways."
--Joyce Carol Oates
"A masterful storyteller."
--Reid Singer, Outside
"A seasoned author in full possession of his art and
craft."--Denver Post
"A skillful storyteller is back. In these pages, Bass illustrates
why he is so revered by fellow authors and readers alike. From
resonant descriptions of place to the revelation of a secret
heart's desire, Bass's writing is always impeccably astute."--Neal
Wyatt, Library Journal
"Bass is a keen and relentless observer of woods and praries and
beasts of every variety....He writes with special feeling about
loneliness....His best stories bring life and death within a hair's
breadth of each other...They display clarity and heart and moral
vision, and glow like a well-stoked wood stove."
--Dwight Garner, New York Times
"Bass's fiction takes us to the borders of civilization, where we
glimpse an untamed world of myth and mystery."
--Entertainment Weekly
"Bass's language glistens with the beauty of the landscape he
evokes...His narration is pitch-perfect, and his writing so full of
empathy for people and places that each story is a new
revelation."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Bass's strong, moving, and impulsive stories make an important
world that is all his own.... This is urgent and valuable
work."
--Thomas McGuane
"Exhilarating....His prose produces the ache of recognition and the
sense the life is indeed worth living."
--David Guterson
"If any contemporary writer of short fiction deserves to take the
victory lap symbolized by a collection of selected stories, it's
Rick Bass . . . [This collection] should win Bass new fans while
inducing his admirers to re-evaluate what they thought they knew
about this versatile and sensitive writer . . . One of the marks of
a rich, layered, rewarding story is that you can read it at
different ages and stages of your life and be struck by distinct
facets of it, and perhaps derive an entirely new meaning from it.
This phenomenon hit me over and over again as I read For a Little
While, whose stories have more to give than can be gleaned in one
reading."
--Jenny Shank, Dallas Morning News
"Lyrical, ruminative, sometimes wry, and genuinely moving, this
collection showcases Bass in his best form. Old classics, new
favorites: There's much to savor here."--Josh Cook, Minneapolis
Star-Tribune
"My enthusiasm for Rick Bass's stories started with The Watch all
those years ago. In the natural world, and even in the
supernatural, the intersection of beauty and loss remains a
hallmark of his exquisite fiction, and is on full display in For A
Little While."--Amy Hempel
"One of our best writers."
--Kent Haruf
"Probably no American writer since Hemingway has written about
man-in-nature more beautifully or powerfully than Rick
Bass."--Dallas Morning News
"Rick Bass has been one of our finest short-fiction writers for
decades. For A Little While will cause a wide public to take note.
His name will be on notices alongside Raymond Carver and Flannery
O'Connor."--William Kittredge
"Rick Bass is something of a quiet miracle, possessing an
astonishingly diverse and extensive bibliography . . . The stories
curated for his new collection, For A Little While, give you an
inkling of the breadth of his work . . . Most of these stories gave
me tingles . . . If there's any justice, the joys and sublimities
of For A Little While won't go away."--Sean Reichard, New West
"Rick Bass is the rarest of writers, someone whose stories I'll
read again and again."--Bob Shacochis
"Rick Bass is the real news, beyond one's hopes."
--Barry Hannah
"Rick Bass readers will feel jubilant at the sight of this
gathering of short stories spanning three decades, with eighteen
from five previous collections and seven glorious new tales....Bass
envisions life on a vast time scale, perceives the preciousness of
the planet, and contemplates our ravenous exploitation of nature in
our quest for light and warmth, security and sustenance. Reverence
and compassion shape each masterfully formed tale in which Bass
handles language itself as a gift as essential as water or
blood....In such previous stories as 'Wild Horses, ' a stunning
examination of grief, and the exquisitely magical 'The Hermit's
Story, ' Bass combines precision, realism, and profound
imagination. In his new stories, he attains a fresh intensity of
emotional nuance as he portrays individuals weighing desire and
duty, regret and gratitude. Bass writes tenderly of fathers and
their breath-catching, if inept, love for their daughters; strong
women and the men who cautiously orbit them; and those who long for
spiritual richness in a world that values material wealth. A
collection of enrapturing radiance and depth, a beacon and a
hearth."
--Donna Seaman, Booklist (Starred Review)
"Rick Bass' mastery of the modern American short story is on full
display in his new collection. In this carefully curated collection
of 18 previously published works and seven new stories, Bass treads
over ground both familiar and alien, but manages to imbue each step
with new insights through common landscapes that make the foreign
familiar. Throughout his career as an environmentalist, essayist,
and fiction writer, Bass has demonstrated his gift for revealing
the world as he sees it, with more than a little optimism and hope
for what the world can be if we look a little deeper. Spending a
little while with this collection is a fulfillment of that
gift."
--Erin H. Turner, Big Sky Journal
"Rick Bass's gift as a writer is that he takes you unforgettable
places and shows you unforgettable sights, all real. The tone is
always quiet and sharp-eyed; details are the only exclamation
points. Each story in For A Little While is a complete hijacking of
the reader's senses, accomplished with a raw and splendid
subtlety."--Carl Hiaasen
"These stories are adventurous, wise, and unexpectedly beautiful."
--Lorrie Moore
"This is a rich collection of stories by a major American writer
esteemed for his originality as well as for his fine prose. One of
the trademarks of the Rick Bass story is the fresh perception of
places and people in their relationships to each other. Never
facile, Bass is able to make us see and feel in unexpected ways and
his stories call out to readers to stop and consider, to explore
their feelings about what has risen up from the pages." --Annie
Proulx
"What a gift this bountiful book is--nearly five hundred pages of
superb short stories and novellas. When it comes to the verities,
Rick Bass rivals the very best we've ever had. His stories, often
stunningly elemental, concern hardy and misbegotten folks, yet are
suffused also with a quality of tenderness for all of whom he
writes and the beautiful wild world they inhabit." --Daniel
Woodrell
"What's exhilarating about Rick Bass's stories is that they show
every hallmark of 'the natural'-that lucid, free-flowing,
particularly American talent whose voice we can hear in Twain,
Fitzgerald, and Hemingway."--Chicago Tribune
"While nature figures heavily in Bass' work, in this collection it
always yields the foreground to people and their difficult,
sometimes devastating lives."--San Francisco Chronicle
Praise for For A Little While "In For a Little While we have a core
sample of a literary titan. At last. For what comes into focus in
this collection is that Bass hasn't been writing just to save our
wild places, but to save what's wild and humane and best within us.
Bass is, hands down, a master of the short form, creating in a few
pages a natural world of mythic proportions . . . Bass's
world-building is so beautiful, crisp, and perfect . . . He renders
every detail with bracing exactness . . . In every story in this
collection, Bass goes into the heart of the matter . . . As you
roll through this rollicking survey of Bass's fiction you begin to
feel an uncomplicated holy motion . . . The pleasure and privilege
of reading Rick Bass is to see how sacred we are . . . The greatest
joy in For a Little While is the belief, in story after story, in
the goodness of all things on this earth, including us."
--Smith Henderson, New York Times Book Review
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