For me, Bass puts into words a yearning I have for masterful nature to look askance at our fretful human concerns; e.g. “There’s the slightly intoxicating feeling that accompanies the largest blizzards—the realization that there’s a chance, increasing by every second, that you are about to be trapped by beauty.” I just know you will want to be here to hear him read his works.
— Sandy

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.

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