';Two appealing short stories and an exquisite novella' about the relationship between humans and the natural world around them (Kirkus Reviews). This is a ';wondrous' (GQ) collection of short fiction exploring the subtle interplay between predator and prey, from ';a literary titan' (The New York Times Book Review). In the title story, a woman has returned to live on the west Texas ranch that has been in her family since Texas was a republic. Her mother, who died when she was a child, is buried there; the three men who raised herher father, grandfather, and Old Chubb, a Mexican ranch handare gone; and her brother, like herself, is childless. Soon, all that will be left of the family is the land: ';I suppose the land is all we will leave behind,' she reflects. ';In that way it is both our parents and our children.' Land is central to the other tales here as well. In The Myths of Bears, a man tracks his wife through a winter wilderness as she both lures and eludes him. And in Where the Sea Used to Be, an ancient ocean buried in the foothills of the Appalachians becomes a battleground for a young wildcat oilman and his aging mentor. ';Rick Bass is a force of nature. [This book] is a force of language. As a reader, a third thing comes to mind: gratitude for a good story that allows us to ponder what is above and what is below.' Terry Tempest Williams ';What's exhilarating about Rick Bass's stories is that they show every hallmark of ';the natural'that lucid, free-flowing, particularly American talent whose voice we can hear in Twain, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway.' Chicago Tribune
