Review
Rick Bass was brought up in Houston, Texas and, for about a
decade after leaving college, worked as a gas and oil geologist
in Jackson, Mississippi (where he started writing short stories
in his lunch breaks) before moving to the Yaak Valley in the
northern Rockies, near the Idaho-Montana-Canada border in 1987
with his wife, Elizabeth Hughes, who has illustrated some of his
more than 20 books. All three locations play a part in
this collection of ten short stories which share two predominant themes - humanity's gluttony
for nature, and teenagers finding their way into adulthood.
In the opening story, "Pagans", three teenagers play
dangerous games in a polluted river near Houston; in "Goats",
two young boys intent on being farmers in the suburbs of
Houston,...
Beyond the Book
Did you know?
In "Titan" a man recalls a boyhood
vacation spent on the coast of Alabama
in which he experiences a
"Jubilee".
Jubilee is a natural phenomena that
occurs in Mobile Bay from time to time,
usually before dawn on a warm summer
night, when large numbers of fish, crabs
and shrimps swarm close to shore, making
themselves easily available to locals
who come out with all sorts of
containers and scoop them up in
quantity.
Jubilee appears to be caused by the
natural stratification of the Bay
waters, with the heavier...
