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Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
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FOR A LITTLE WHILE

Rick Bass

New and Selected Stories

The definitive collection of stories - new and old - from Rick Bass.
For the past three decades Rick Bass, long considered one of the most gifted practitioners of the short story, has been unsurpassed in his ability to perceive and portray the enduring truths of the human heart. To read his fiction is to feel more alive-connected, incandescently, to "the brief longshot of having been chosen for the human experience," as one of his characters puts it.

These pages reveal men and women living with passion and tenderness at the outer limits of the senses, each attempting to triumph against fate. In the timeless and much-loved "The Hermit's Story," a couple escapes a sudden blizzard by traversing a frozen lake-beneath the ice-while oft-anthologized treasures like "The Watch" and "The Fireman" provide searing insights into the complexity of family and romantic entanglements, whether it's a cantankerous father and son in the jungle of a Mississippi bayou, or a troubled marriage haunted and cleansed by house fires.
In "How She Remembers It," Bass's latest Pushcart Prize winner, a twelve-year-old girl takes her first trip to Yellowstone with her beloved father, who, unbeknownst to her, is losing his memory. In other new stories we meet an ancient, once-vital matriarch refusing all attempts to lease her oil-rich land; a teenage boy rescuing a truck from the river in which his father drowned; an alcoholic logger seeking absolution and renewal amid the ancient ruins of South America; and a father protecting his daughters from a mountain lion on a trip to harvest a Christmas tree gone awry. Bass's lush and striking language pulls us ineluctably into the lives of these engaging characters and their surroundings.

These intricate stories-brimming with magic and wonder, filled with hard-won empathy, marbled throughout with astonishing imagery-have the power both to devastate and to uplift. For a Little While showcases an iconic American master at his peak, and is a breathtaking work of literature every fiction reader must own.

Rick Bass, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for his memoir Why I Came West, was born and raised in Texas, worked as a petroleum geologist in Mississippi, and has lived in Montana's Yaak Valley for almost three decades. His short fiction, which has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, and The Paris Review, as well as numerous times in Best American Short Stories, has earned him multiple O. Henry Awards and Pushcart Prizes as well as NEA and Guggenheim fellowships.
Available products
Book

Published 2016-03-01 by Little Brown

Book

Published 2016-03-01 by Little Brown

Comments

The stories in Rick Bass’s For a Little While are adventurous, wise, and unexpectedly beautiful.

For a Little While is nothing short of remarkable....

This is a rich collection of stories by a major American writer esteemed for his originality as well as for 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.

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.

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.

Rick was honored at a ceremony last night in New York City for his story collection published last March, FOR A LITTLE WHILE. He is the 13th winner of the prestigious prize honoringthe author of an outstanding collection of short fiction and his book was selected from among over 100 other books. In their statement, the judges wrote: “Rick Bass’s gift at conveying the vastness of the American wilderness through a form as compact as the short story is a cause for wonder." Read more...

What a gift Rick Bass’s bountiful For a Little While is... Bass rivals the very best we’ve ever had...

France: Editions Christian Bourgois ; UK: Pushkin Press

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.