About this item
Highlights
- Rick Bass's Fortunate Son is a literary tour of the Lone Star State by a native Texan of exceptional talent.
- Author(s): Rick Bass
- 216 Pages
- Literary Collections, Essays
Description
About the Book
Rick Bass's Fortunate Son is a literary tour of the Lone Star State by a native Texan of exceptional talent.Book Synopsis
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, then: 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
Review Quotes
"Bass's book is probing at times, but it also exudes a more ethereal quality. Reading it reminded me of artist and musician Terry Allen's description of one of his albums as 'a haunting.' In Fortunate Son, Texas isn't a protagonist or antagonist; rather, it's an ethereal spirit that touches on essays."--Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle
"Fans of the author's writing and collectors of Texas literature alike will prize his homecoming."--Kirkus Reviews
"Mr. Bass is an exquisite and unfussy writer."--Andrew R. Graybill, Wall Street Journal
"Perfect for fans of [Larry] McMurtry's essays."--Stuart Rosebrook, True West
"Rick Bass has something important to say, and he says it good."--Edward Abbey, author of Desert Solitaire 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 Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film
"The book's sixteen essays, both old and new, form a kind of Lone Star collage. . . . Bass's writings are shot through with warmth and worry."--Brantley Hargrove, Texas Highways