Long considered one of the most gifted practitioners of the short story, Rick Bass is unsurpassed in his ability to perceive and portray the enduring truths of the human heart. Now, at last, we have the definitive collection of stories, new and old, from the writer Newsweek has called "an American classic."
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. Bass provides searing insights into the complexity of family and romantic entanglements, and his lush and striking language draws us ineluctably into the lives of these engaging people and their vivid surroundings. The intricate stories collected in For A Little While―brimming with magic and wonder, filled with hard-won empathy, marbled throughout with astonishing imagery -- have the power both to devastate and to uplift. Together they showcase an iconic American master at his peak.
Press ~ Reviews and Interviews
Brazos Bookstore Interview - Houston, Texas 3/23/17
New York Times 3/11/16
New York Times Book Review 3/7/16 (PDF)
All Things Considered, National Public Radio 3/7/16
The San Franciso Chronicle 3/3/16
Missoula Independent 3/3/16
Chicago Tribune 3/1/16
Praise for For A Little While
"[A] sustained achievement....Bass has used the short story form to pursue a searing vision of life....His people are almost always extraordinarily deep feelers, often wracked with pain (usually from some profound loss, recent or impending) and struggling to recover. At the same time, their eyes are wide open to the natural beauty around them, from their big skies to the sprawling landscape beneath."―Kevin Nance, 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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"These stories are adventurous, wise, and unexpectedly beautiful."―Lorrie Moore
"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)
"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)
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
"One of the truly impressive short story writers of his generation."―George Plimpton
"A master craftsman."―Los Angeles Times
"Rick Bass is the rarest of writers, someone whose stories I'll read again and again."―Bob Shacochis
"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
"What a voice! True and desperate, and full of longing." ―Joy Williams
"A seasoned author in full possession of his art and craft."―Denver Post
"Probably no American writer since Hemingway has written about man-in-nature more beautifully or powerfully than Rick Bass."―Dallas Morning News
"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 fiction takes us to the borders of civilization, where we glimpse an untamed world of myth and mystery." ―Entertainment Weekly
"Rick Bass is the real news, beyond one's hopes." ―Barry Hannah
"Exhilarating....His prose produces the ache of recognition and the sense the life is indeed worth living." ―David Guterson
"One of our best writers."―Kent Haruf
"Bass's strong, moving, and impulsive stories make an important world that is all his own.... This is urgent and valuable work." ―Thomas McGuane
