In the Loyal Mountains

the long version

These tales simultaneously embrace vibrant images of ordinary human life and exuberant descriptions of the natural world. In the title story, a man remembers his youth in the Texas hill country when he joined in his uncle's raucous escapades, which have taken on new shape and meaning in light of what has happened since. While Bass's work is grounded in an uncompromising vision of truth, he magnifies elements until they acquire fantastic proportions. In these stories enormous pigs charge through the streets and root under houses; a narrator meets a woman who runs up and down mountains; a group of children don wolf masks to chase a boy through the woods. Each story is a mythical narrative celebrating the complex and moving relationship between humans and their environment.