Fortunate Son: Selected Essays from the Lone Star State

by Rick Bass

Rick Bass’s Fortunate Son is a literary tour of the Lone Star State by a native Texan of exceptional talent. The essays encompass a Texas that is both lost and found, past and present. The stories reach from Galveston Bay to the Hill Country outside Austin, and from Houston in the 1960s to today. They are bound together by a deep love and a keen eye for the land and its people and by an appreciation for what is given, a ruefulness for what is lost, and a commitment to save what can be saved. “This is a journalist’s Texas scrapbook, a firefighting story, a musical pilgrimage, a ramble in Texas’s tiniest public wilderness (one of only five in the entire state). Fishing with my father and uncle on a lake that is partly in Texas and partly in Louisiana; flying around the borders of Texas—usually defined by water, a resource that will vanish in much of the state within our lifetime; hanging out at my parents’ cattle farm down near Goliad; reading the work of Texans before me.”—from the Introduction ACCLAIM “Fans of the author’s writing and collectors of Texas literature alike will prize his homecoming.”—Kirkus Reviews “Rick Bass has something important to say, and he says it good.”—Edward Abbey, author of Desert A Season in the Wilderness and The Monkey Wrench Gang “Rick Bass is one of the most important American writers of his generation. In literary-historical terms, he takes his place among legends such as Edward Abbey, John Graves, Aldo Leopold, and Annie Dillard, among others, as a notable nature essayist.”—W. K. Stratton, author of The Wild Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rick Bass is a Texas native now living in Montana. Recognized by numerous Pushcart Prizes and the O. Henry Awards as well as the Texas Institute of Letters, Bass continues to publish celebrated fiction and nonfiction about the natural world and humans’ place in it. His recent books include For A Little New and Selected Stories and The Traveling On the Road and at the Table with My Heroes.

Genres: Nonfiction

190 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 17, 2021

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

[M. Sarki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never seen a wilderness designated that people did not come to love...

Rick Bass has been writing for a long time it seems, fighting to protect his beloved Yaak Valley in Montana and the last of the remaining twenty-five grizzlies inhabiting the area. Bass used to be a fiction-writer of note, but for the majority of the last decade or two he has concentrated on essays and being an advocate for the land he loves and the wild animals living there. Of course, a book like this travels through a lot of territory and Texas is the main focus. Family, old school chums, and literary icons dot the landscapes he covers in these heartwarming memoirs. It is hoped that Bass outlives most of us, that he continues to write and to write well. He is a wise sage getting smarter by the minute. Let's hope it is years before his time runs out.

[Laura Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays mainly about Texas including stories about volunteer firefighters, and various other topics, but primarily about nature.

I liked some better than others. I'm a sucker, but I really enjoyed the one about Roy Bedichek and John Graves. The one about the firefighters and the ibises were really good too.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Fortunate Son offer a thought-provoking mix of personal reflection and sharp insights, each piece revealing something new about the human experience. The writing is both introspective and engaging, making these essays a truly rewarding read for anyone interested in deep, meaningful storytelling.

[David Kessler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rick Bass captures his personal moments of living in two places: Yaak valley of Montana and his decades of growing up in Texas and visiting Texas often during the 1980s and 1990s and even into the next century. His short vignettes show how he loved the land and the people who wrestled a living by hard scrabbling day by day. Wonderful writing as always. He has to be my favorite nature writer