Fiber

the long version

Fiber is a story about the ravages of activism and the healing properties of art. It is a story about last chances, about crafting solutions from the wreckage of a devastated place, and about the high cost, emotionally and physically, of hope in the presence of despair. Writing from the Yaak Valley of northwestern Montana, the wildest valley in the Lower 48, Rick Bass portrays the plight of the artist deeply embedded in a place he loves. The author asks how a writer survives amidst the destruction of the natural world around him, if, like Bass, the writer must struggle passionately to protect a place like the Yaak from devastation. As a work of fiction, Fiber elegantly follows the life of the narrator as he evolves from the geologist who takes, to the artist who gives, to the activist who fights, and finally to the troubling and magical "log fairy."