In The Loyal Mountains: A Vibrant Short Story Collection of Place, Nature, and Human Connection

by Rick Bass

To quote the Los Angeles Times: "Impelled by a profound love of the land, the ten stories in In the Loyal Mountains are a reminder that American literature draws its unique strength from a powerful sense of place." In this luminous collection, Rick Bass firmly establishes himself as a master of the short story, with tales that embrace vibrant images of ordinary human life and exuberant descriptions of the natural world.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Nature, Outdoors, Adult

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Rick Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Houston, the son of a geologist. He studied petroleum geology at Utah State University and while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi, began writing short stories on his lunch breaks. In 1987, he moved with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes Bass, to Montana’s remote Yaak Valley and became an active environmentalist, working to protect his adopted home from the destructive encroachment of roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies and continues to live with his family on a ranch in Montana, actively engaged in saving the American wilderness.

Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read the first story again, “The History of Rodney.” Rodney, Mississippi: “The slow summer. The time when nothing moves forward, when everything pauses, and then stops. It’s a good idea.” The river is gone, the pigs are cursed generals, the town is twelve people.

“This place isn’t on the map, right?” Elizabeth will ask. It’s a game we play. We’re frightened of cities, of other people.
“It might as well not even exist,” I’ll tell her.
She seems reassured.

But, next is “Swamp Boy,” and I can’t stop there, next is “Fires.” There’s a History Channel show right now, Mountain Men, and one of the Men is Tom Oar from Yaak and his wife Nancy. I found it flipping through a channel and, immediately, “Tom and Nancy!” I said. Sure enough, not even a page into “Fires” and who should appear but, Tom and Nancy.

“Turn back, you bastards!” Tom shouted happily. That woke the ducks in the pond nearby, and they began clucking amongst themselves. It was a reassuring sound. Nancy made Tom tie a rope around his waist and tie the other end around the chimney, in case he fell. But Tom said he wasn’t afraid of anything, and was going to live forever.

And then there’s “The Valley”:

There aren’t many people in this valley—twenty-six registered voters—and rather than disliking everyone, as I found it so easy to do in the city, I can now take time to love practically everyone.
I have to start small. I have to get it right.

And “The Legend of Pig-Eye,” and “The Wait”:

He’s suddenly an outlaw too, the happiest one, and I think that’s how it always goes, how the longer you go without something, the happier you are when you finally get it.

Before I knew it, it was “In The Loyal Mountains” and we were seventeen, “believing in things rather than understanding them,” and I had read the whole thing. Whoops. Except the exact opposite of “whoops.” More like, I couldn’t recommend something better.

- - -

First reviewed, June 2011:

I’ve been reading a story a night, right before bed. I couldn’t recommend something better. Except for the nights I can’t stop without two or three.

This is pretty much the straight-up successor to The Watch, and that’s a beautiful thing.

[Kirk Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful escapist stories for adults, set in the most idyllic settings in nature. I want to describe the style or at least the perspective as primal romantic. These are the kinds of stories that say "seek your dreams", and then give great examples of what that could be. It makes me wish I could have had the life of a trust fund baby, maybe living 6 months a year on an island, and 6 months in Montana. Great stories, full of life, they feel like springtime, I'm not the best audience, my season is autumn.****The first story 'The History of Rodney' was a visual artist's conception. I saw it entirely in sepia, it was crisp, darkly shadowed, filmed with moonlight, so beautiful it was dreamlike.

[Utsav · Rating 4 out of 5]

I. In Which I Extol the Virtues of Solitude

The last few winters I’ve been living alone in a house on a hillside in the north of Thimphu valley, way outside the city. The house is almost at the edge of the forest, and no people live around me. Once in a while when it snows the mud track to the house ices over and I’m effectively trapped in.

On Sundays or if I take a day or two off work, I like to sit outside after breakfast and enjoy the morning sun. Sometimes I’ll pop a cold beer or roll myself one and lie in the grass with a book or a guitar. Sometimes I might even go a few days without speaking to anyone. I’ll just be up there on the hill, pretending to be the only human left alive.

People often ask me how I manage- how I can bear to be so alone and not go crazy, or be scared. I just smile and shrug- truthfully, I don’t really understand the question.

II. Who is this Rick Bass guy anyway?

I’d never heard of Rick Bass before this book was recommended for my book club. It turns out he is an environmental activist along with being a rather prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction. That much is evident in his writing, in each of the ten stories collected in this book. Ten beautifully written stories too short to be even called short stories- more the kind Kawabata liked to call ‘Palm of the Hand Stories’.

All stories are told in first person by a lonely, disconnected male narrator, and almost all of them take place in a lonely, disconnected valley or town somewhere off the map, the kind of place that has a dozen, maybe two, residents. People live off the land, hunting, fishing, and off such company as afforded by the townsfolk. If any of this seems unappealing, it is instructive to remember that most of these people are here by choice, not lack of imagination.

III. Geography as a Character

James Joyce did it for Dublin throughout his oeuvre, Woody Allen did it for the titular borough in Manhattan, Rick Bass does it here for remote rural America- the animation of Setting as Character. The land, the mountains, the valleys, and the rivers are more than scenic backdrops- they are what form the actual heart of the stories- the humans are, in a way, mere framing devices for the plots. The men and women seek out the desolate solitude of these landscapes for comfort and escape, and quite often, they find it.

The Earth is a vast and magnificent place. We humans are but a dirty speck in its grand history. Yet, in our hubris, we trivialize what we should be grateful for, ruin the very thing that keeps us alive. Give thanks to a book like this then, that reminds us, and beautifully.

[Kerri Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Random thoughts while reading/upon finishing this collection:

⦁ The first essay in this collection, about Mississippi, is one of my favorites. Ditto to "Swamp Boy." Sense of place writing at some of its fictional finest.
⦁ The title essay in this collection was/is actually my least favorite of all of them.
⦁ Bass so often comes back to the Yaak (which of course makes sense, even if it left some of these essays feeling somewhat repetitive when read so closely following a bevy of his Yaak-related nonfiction).
⦁ Short stories are stunning things, but their endings get slippery sometimes.

[Four stars for stunning spirals of truth in every fabrication.]

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've lugged this tiny book on probably 7 vacations with full intent of reading the collection of stories- finally "committing" while at the beach.........so I could be "that guy" reading a book about the mountains while at the beach. Except, these stories aren't about the mountains........they're about stuff more primal than mountains. Rick Bass is a master at this kind of thing- getting to below our bedrock and flipping our subsoil over into our topsoil. A real mess maker.

In truth, the stories are magnificent; just like his other stuff. He gets to the quick. What I love the most is the way he can string you along, you're following along, you're in the story, and they just fade out at the end. To some, this technique would be maddening, but he does it SO well, they make for perfect little short story endings........so far from the O'Henry classic endings it stings. My favorites this time around (because they would be different next time) were "The History of Rodney", "The Legend of Pig-Eye", "Days of Heaven", and "In the Loyal Mountains". I sure as hell hope one of those is mostly true; I am rooting for the opening story (Rodney). You're a bad ass on paper Mr. Bass- a complete bad ass.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there is ever a book that makes you want to go buy a cabin in a remote mountainous area, this is it. It took me to a place in my imagination that I've been to before, when I lived for a long while in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, when I have taken road trips to the far corners of America. I loved these stories by Rick Bass, magical narratives that tell of people wearing antlers at Halloween, rich people who buy cabins for bloodthirsty hunting and secretive trysts, people who love each other in remote but closely-knit communities. My favorites of the collection were "The History of Rodney," "Fires," "Antlers," "The Legend of Pig-Eye," and the title story, "In the Loyal Mountains." The last story takes place in the Texas hill country and Houston, and features a teenage boy, his swearing girlfriend, his rambunctious uncle and their adventures. I loved the feeling of being plunged into and weaving my way through Bass's imaginative tales.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminds me of David James Duncan's River Teeth, even if these two collections are in no way the same. Still, there's a familiar sense of place, and love for those places, that winds through both collections, the ability to pull disparate places and characters and themes together through a simple sense of place and a great deal of love. These are the kind of stories that most give me hope.

[5 stars minus 1 star for ending too soon is 4 stars.]

[Michael Whitaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this collection of stories. I could read "The History of Rodney" again and again and again. It's a hard story to follow. Still, I loved "Swamp Boy," "Fires." "The Wait," and "In the Loyal Mountains" would be included among my favorites, as well.

Rick Bass is such an interesting writer to me. I'm going to be on the hunt for "The Stars, The Sky, The Wilderness" and "Platte River." I feel like I'd be enamored by the fully realized worlds he creates for longer pieces and I think the novella would be an ideal form for his great writing.

Very good.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I read this too fast. All of the stories had a similar tone which I couldn't possibly put into words. Needs to be savored over time, otherwise the wonder is lost.

History of Rodney, the first story, is my favorite. A sleepy, hot, forgotten town in the south with a handful of old and lost, crazy pigs and a river somewhere out there.

[Tattered Cover Book Store]

This book was recomended by novelist and book editor Jenny Shank as part of the Rocky Mountain Land Library's "A Reading List For the President Elect: A Western Primer for the Next Administration."

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this book brought back some form of nostalgia, but from the ranking, you can probably guess that this wasn't a good form of nostalgia. This, the third collection of short stories from Rick Bass, was published in 1995. I wrote in a previous review that I was rather wowed by Rick Bass when I first read The Watch soon after it came out. These stories were wild and exciting in my last year or two of college as a young writer, extravagant but somehow still rooted in the real world, making him an interesting alternative to the "dirty realism" of Raymond Carver and the sharp minimalism of Ann Beattie. I looked up some other Bass that didn't appear in that collection in magazines like The Paris Review (a couple of which made their way into this collection), and maybe because they didn't excite me like the first collection did, I lost steam in finding another Rick Bass collection.

So, in a recent drive to find more pandemic reading and alternatives to the Evil Empire of Amazon, I found a bunch of Bass collections used (and cheap). The second collection, Platte River, left me mixed, with the superlative stories like "Field Events" thrilling, but not very tactile. And the title piece was highly visual but somehow unsatisfying.

Thus bringing us to this book, where I felt I was reading stories that my mid-90s graduate school workshop crew would have generally adored or slavered over--stories that stay rooted to their metaphors and resolve themselves through those rigid metaphors, and more so, stories that revolve around men being withholding of emotions, with stories like "The Wait" somehow offering themselves as complete when we get the suggestion of one of the men in the story actually starting to feel something. Perhaps the fact that this collection is 25 years old really showed. I have no doubt that overtly metaphored stories about men being manly until they are pushed to the verge of feminization is certainly nothing new in the patriarchal world of publishing, but boy did it seemed I was STEEPED in it in mid-90s MFA days, a method that I quickly found tiresome and, well, boring. It was as though there was this discovery that White Men (gulp!) could FEEL things, as though catching up to the rest of the human race was something to reward them for. And it seemed like the publishing world (at least the end of it I had any access to) wanted mostly to push that viewpoint.

So yeah, bad nostalgia. Bass is a highly competent writer, with interesting constructions of sentences and great images, though this book seemed to play to the powers that wanted stories that wanted White Men and their hang-ups as standards of fiction. Almost, it just occurs to me now, as a way to excuse the white patriarchal stranglehold on publishing, to say we're not so bad.

This final sentiments are well beyond what Bass himself is writing and more about the allure to publishers and agents as to what made Good Fiction. I have three or four books still waiting for me in that pile of discount Bass, so we'll see whether he bucks this trend to offer stuff hopefully more insightful.

[Jeff Stookey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The short stories in this book depict characters I don’t generally identify with: loners, boxers, hunters, fishermen. I wonder how many of these characters would be Trump voters. Many of them have a deep regard for the natural world and the wilderness—something I do share. Deep observation of nature is one of Rick Bass’s strengths—his descriptions of the flora and fauna are superb. He also has a knack for conjuring up striking images that stick in the imagination: the skeleton of a deer impaled on the spikes of an iron fence surrounding a cemetery; a deteriorating sports car welded to the top of a lakeside tower; a trio of people wearing antlers on their heads while being towed on skis behind a truck at night in a snow storm. In some ways these images are what many of the stories are—since in some of the tales there is little or no distinct plot, movement, or conclusion. The reader is left relishing the images and wondering whatever happened to these wandering souls.

[Jonathan Mcwalter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read one of the stories back in college (could not recall which one it was for the life of me) and I have had this on my shelf ever since. So, I finally decided to pick it back up and actually read it cover to cover. Amazingly vivid descriptions among a great physical backdrop that adds so much to each story. I felt like I was right there with some of the stories. I enjoyed them very much and I can only assume I never read it back then because I wasn’t quite the fan of reading at the time.

[Jenni · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read Winter a few weeks ago and enjoyed it. This is the first work of fiction by Rick Bass that I've had the pleasure to read and I am definitely adding it to my list of books to buy! So damn good. It made me remember how much I enjoy the power of short stories. A quick, wonderful read. Will be sure to read more of his work.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short little set of stories that are not entirely connected, but even so seem to have a loose thread tying them together. Bass concocts characters, or at least does a good job of drawing them out of his surroundings. But he’s best at the surroundings which are part of the Big Sky that he is settled in.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are intriguing. They demonstrate personalities interacting with nature in lots of different ways. The most powerful, to me, was "The Legend of Pig-Eye," but all were 3-5 out of 5, in my book!

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ten stories, fluctuating between Bass' early years in Texas and his later retreat to the mountains of Montana. Bass' ability to capture the feeling of place is excellent, and he spins good tales of childhood and adult relationships to both people and their surroundings.

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t feel this collection of short stories is one of Bass’ best works.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fierce yet meditative, beautiful yet despairing. Rick Bass is one of the best short story writers alive. That is all.

[Blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

some of you should go outside and touch grass like rick bass

[AB · Rating 4 out of 5]

The History of Rodney and Swamp Boy were stories I read over a couple of times. A great read.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

The history of Rodney
Swamp boy
*Fires
The valley
*Antlers
Wejumpka
*The legend of Pig-eye
The wait
*Days of heaven
In the Loyal Mountains
***
Cats and students, bubbles and anises
Field events --2
Fireman
Heartwood
The hermit's story --3
The myths of bears
The watch --1
Wild horses --1

[Andy Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of Rick Bass short stories published in 1995. My favorites were the ones set in the Yaak Valley. "Fires" centered on a Yaak resident who is hired to help a world class runner who came to the Yaak to train by biking behind her with a gun in case a bear decided to join the chase. The two develop a friendship amidst the simplicity and wonder of the Yaak valley life, the scenes of her running are among the best writing of running I've ever read

"The Valley"is somewhat a travelogue of the Yaak with focus on the diverse and often eccentric residents of the valley, the lack of a strong plot focuses the reader on Bass's descriptions of the valley landmarks and people that he clearly loves."Antlers" tells of Suzie "who has moved through the valley with a rhythm that is all her own" and fight her loneliness with a serial monogamy of relationships "with all the able bodied men of the valley" save the bow hunter who Suzie refuses because of her aversion to bow hunting which she believes is unnecessarily cruel to the prey--this story gives Bass a chance to highlight the diversity and "live and let live" mantra of his valley

My favorite story not set in the Yaak was "The Legend of Pig Eye," a story set in the south about an ex-boxer turned trainer who recruits brawlers from the bars and turns them into fighters with a unique lakeside training camp and is funded by traveling the bar circuit challenging all comers with the prize money consisting of bets made in the bar

Bass is a great writer, his later work seemed to develop an edge that eventually seemed to turn into writing for profit, but these stories are Bass at his best, a simple prose that enhances his descriptions of the places and people he loves

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd heard Bass' "Fires" read aloud on the radio one day, and since it was about a woman moving up to WA state to do some trail running, it seemed right up my alley.

I really enjoyed a few of these stories - "Fires", "The Legend of Pig-Eye", "In the Loyal Mountains", and especially "Days of Heaven". All of them were worth reading, and he does a really good job of painting some vivid and believable mountain/wilderness scenes. Some of the scenes are almost mythic-seeming, and still stick with me - as with those of the trainer on his wild, angry horse swimming into the lake in "Pig-Eye", the drunk partiers with antlers on their heads and skis on their feet being towed home from the bar after winter-time parties, and that of the humongous house and elk locked together in a fight in "Days of Heaven". A lot of these scenes make me feel at home, as someone who finds himself with a perpetual desire to return to the mountains and the west when I'm not there already.

Despite the great scenes and some great lines, a lot of these stories didn't really stick with me, or "pop", or just stand up as remarkable, as I feel my favorite short stories often do. Something about his dialogue feels a bit stilted to me too. But overall, I found the majority of these pretty enjoyable, and very easy to read.

[Duc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I met the author in a reading at Powell's. He signed my book in 1995 when the book first came out.
07/22/07
I just re read three of his short stories in one sitting. 'Fires', 'Antlers', and 'Valley' are beautiful stories. I like short stories for the simple reason that it get to the point with metaphors and not clutter it up with too many details or side stories. 'Fire' is a metaphor for the relationship between the Runner, and the Narrator. I think of Hemingway and some of his Nick Adams stories. The local is exotic. The landscape fuels the narrative. The characters have an independent streak to them making them ever more interesting to sit down with and have a cup of coffee or a dip in the lake.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was previously unfamiliar with the author, but will certainly be reading more by him. My girlfriend and I slowly read this book aloud to each other and it was nice not to rush through this collection of essays. Each essay was completely different from the next, but strongly tied together through writing that conveyed a strong sense of place and the human characters occupying the diverse locations. I particularly appreciated the pace of the writing, the lucid sense of place it elicited, and the slight incompleteness of each story. Even a couple of months after reading some of the first essays in the collection, I can still recall them with clarity, which is something I always appreciate about a thoughtful essay.

[Dave Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was slower than the other Rick Bass I loved, The Watch, but it was equally as powerful. Whether out west or in the south of Texas and Mississippi, these are stories about the wilderness and our desire to never lose that. Bass writes clean powerful sentences and he's a master of setting--a cool lake, a loyal mountain, an animal carcass and the incoming crows. His characters want to be left alone but they can't stand the loneliness, providing Bass with a narrative drive that often takes the place of plot. Here's a great line to end on, "We used to go to bars, the really seedy ones, to find our fights."

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best short story collections I've come across. It's hard not to see it as a book about men - in cold wilderness, in small towns, living simple lives with simple affairs of life and women and work. It's both lyrical and plainly written. Their structure is perfection - they draw you in, you find yourself in their rhythm, then they hit you hard in the end; my breath was taken away at the end of a few.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is uneven, but there are a few stunning stories that make it a worthwhile read. Bass's use of the first person is deceptively simple but takes on a mythic quality. Very authoritative and you can easily lose yourself in the landscapes and characters he writes about. The title story is heartbreaking.

[Kendall]

Book of short stories. All centered around naturalist settings- but each one includes a slice of life thread that should make them appealing to anyone- even if you don't care about the nature and the outdoors. Bass writing skills rank up there with the best of the best. His sentences flow smoothly; his sense of rhythm is perfect and he never misses a note.