Rick Bass – författare

From his bid to become Eudora Welty's lawn boy to the time George Plimpton offered to punch him in the nose, lineage has always been important to Rick Bass. Now at a turning point--in his midfifties, with his long marriage dissolved and his grown daughters out of the house--Bass strikes out on a journey of thanksgiving. His aim: to make a memorable meal for each of his mentors, to express his gratitude for the way they have shaped not only his writing but his life. The result, an odyssey to some of America's most iconic writers, is also a record of self-transformation as Bass seeks to recapture the fire that drove him as a young man. Along the way we join in escapades involving smuggled contraband, an exploding grill, a trail of blood through Heathrow airport, an episode of dog-watching with Amy Hempel in Central Park, and a near run-in with plague-ridden prairie dogs on the way to see Lorrie Moore, as well as heartwarming and bittersweet final meals with the late Peter Matthiessen, John Berger, and Denis Johnson. Poignant, funny, and wistful, The Traveling Feast is a guide to living well and an unforgettable adventure that nourishes and renews the spirit.

On the Road meets Tuesdays with Morrie in this pilgrimage by "an American classic" (Newsweek) to thank his most important mentors through memorable meals and conversations"Some years later, George Plimpton offered to punch me in the nose," recounts Rick Bass, remembering fondly a conversation with the famed Paris Review editor in his office, in which Plimpton, who had been slugged by Archie Moore, offered to connect Bass to a "hoary genealogy" that would include Ali and Frazier. Lineage has always been important to Bass. Before the punch-that-could-have-been, there was his failed bid to become Eudora Welty's lawn boy, and his first meal with Jim Harrison, during which he could barely bring himself to speak. That supper would eventually inspire this book, Rick's years-long pilgrimage to thank his heroes, and to pass on their legacy of mentorship to the next generation.The poignancy of this journey of thanksgiving is intensified by the place in life at which Bass finds himself. He is nearing sixty, his daughters are now grown, and his wife of more than two decades, who accompanied him on that long-ago dinner with Jim Harrison, has called an end to their marriage. In the wake of this loss, Bass sets out, accompanied by two young writers, to recapture the fire, the hunger, that has faded from his life.The Traveling Feast is a book about meeting one's debts in two directions--sending gratitude to the old exemplars, and a few contemporaries, from Peter Matthiessen to David Sedaris and John Berger to Lorrie Moore, while paying it forward to the next generation of writers, believing in and supporting them as Bass was by his own heroes. Each chapter in this fruitful journey recalls the meeting, the meal, and the history--the writer of the past and of the now. From the disastrous pecan tart to the illegally transported elk meat to the photo op gone awry are many resonant moments. What emerges is a guide not only to writing well but to living well, to sucking out all the marrow of life, in Thoreau's immortal phrase. The Traveling Feast is a chronicling of the old ways, a cross-continent pilgrimage to show gratitude for a legacy of American literature and the writers who made it.

Set in the South and West, they pursue themes of friendship, loyalty, and freedom, of escape, where valiant holdouts refuse to grow up, or to grow old.

GQ called the three short novels in this collection "wondrous." A woman returns to live on her family's west Texas ranch ...a man tracks his wife through a winter wilderness ...an ancient ocean buried in the foothills of the Appalachians becomes a battleground for a young wildcat oilman and his aging mentor. Here is Bass at his magical, passionate, and lyrical best.

“Ambitious and often captivatingly beautiful . . . an extended meditation on the prickly, necessary interrelationship of man and the natural world.” —Kirkus ReviewsThe first full-length novel by one of our finest fiction writers, Where the Sea Used to Be tells the story of a struggle between a father and his daughter for the souls of two men, Matthew and Wallis—his protégés, her lovers. Old Dudley is a Texan whose religion is oil, and in his fifty years of searching for it in Swan Valley he has destroyed a dozen geologists. Matthew is Dudley’s most recent victim, but Wallis begins to uncover the dark mystery of Dudley’s life. Each character, the wildlife, and the land itself are rendered with the vivid poetry that is that hallmark of Rick Bass’s writing.“Sometimes, reading this book, I wished I could step into its pages and physically inhabit the world Rick Bass creates. At its best, Where the Sea Used to Be is that powerful, that seductive.” —The Washington Post“In the beauty of his language and the grandeur of his story’s scope, Bass has created both powerful fiction and a parable for the situation in which the human race finds itself . . . Read it to discover anew the power good fiction can have.” —SFGate“One of the country’s premier sources of poetic, nature-oriented short fiction . . . The particular pleasure of reading a Rick Bass novel is the total immersion you feel in the hypnotic lyricism of his prose . . . a novel of inestimable beauty.” —The Austin Chronicle

“An extraordinary exploration and meditation . . . [Bass] transports us along on this wonder-filled tour, full of hardness and hope, into an otherworldly place that mirrors our own.” —National Geographic TravelerBlack rhinos are not actually black. They are, however, giant animals with tiny eyes, feet the diameter of laundry baskets, and horns that are prized for both their aesthetic and medicinal qualities. Until recently, these creatures were perched on the edge of extinction, their numbers dwindling as they succumbed to poachers and the ravages of civil war. Now their numbers are rising, thanks to a groundbreaking new conservation method from the Save the Rhino Trust: make sure that rhinos are worth more alive than dead. Rick Bass, who has long worn the uneasy mantle of both activist and hunter, traveled to Namibia to find black rhinos. The tale of his journey provides a deeper understanding of these amazing animals and of just what needs to be done to protect them. “Bass provides a singularly thoughtful portrait of a unique animal, and a meditation on mankind’s relationship to both it and the natural world as a whole.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

Suit up with celebrated literary master Rick Bass as he writes, ala Buzz Bissinger (Friday Night Lights) and George Plimpton (Paper Lions), through the prism of battered semi-professional football and the refractions it casts on matters of race, masculinity, and yes, faith. The Montana writer Norman Maclean wrote, “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.” Rick Bass, born and raised in Houston, knows that in Texas, there’s no clear line between religion and football. In Wrecking Ball: Race, Friendship, God, and Football, award-winning writer Rick Bass chronicles three seasons on the field with the Texas Express, a semiprofessional team in the Dynamic Texas Football Association. This is unsung football. Light-years from the NFL, it has nowhere near the pomp of college football nor even of Texas high-school football, where hometown fans’ civic identity is always on the line. In the hardscrabble world of spring-season semipro ball, there are no fans. Eventually even the players’ families avoid these games. Most players are in their twenties, but some are older. Every year a few get to try out for the college game; others get scholarship money and a shot at another life. But for most, this is their last chance. Many—most—get hurt. One hundred and fifty-five pounds dripping wet and forty-five years past his playing career as a one-season walk-on at Utah State, Rick Bass came to Brenham, a flyspeck town outside of Houston, to write about the Express. But with a disastrous season unfolding and injuries, incarcerations, and plain boredom claiming players every week, Bass was induced to suit up and take the field. Suddenly the writer became part of the story in a tale reminiscent of George Plimpton and Paper Lion. Rick’s experience on and off the field and his observations about the game, the terrible injuries, the expectations and pleasures of comradery, the overriding influence of the coach, and race, poverty, and, yes, religion on the field, are the unforgettable subjects of Wrecking Ball.