What do You think about The Hermit's Story: Stories (2003)?
The story “Eating” is going to hold a special, special place in my heart. Set right here outside my door in North Carolina, he gets the place and the people just right.“I’m hungry,” Russell said. They stood there in the blue smoke, letting it bathe them for a while, and looked out at the forest dropping away below them: sweetgum, hickory, oak, loblolly, mountain laurel. They could see more ridges, more knolls and valleys, gold lit, through the framework of green leaves and branches. Tobacco country, down in the lowlands. Russell took another look at the hams. “This is my country,” he said. “Or getting real near it.”Likewise “The Cave,” the companion story to “Eating,” is tremendous: the two young lovers underground in a coal mine. Likewise “The Fireman,” likewise “Real Town,” likewise “Swans”— the one that killed my heart. I just wish Rick Bass would write a bad story now and then.
—Jamie
Given that I'm not a big fan of short stories as a rule, I enjoyed this book, mostly for the quality of the writing. I find, a month after finishing it, that not much sticks with me, though. Short stories tend to baffle me - I'm never quite sure that what I get is what the author meant. Finally, I was left wishing that I'd read this book in a class, under the guidance of a professor who could trace the story arc.Several of our book club members said that modern short stories don't have a story arc: they're just meant to capture a mood or a moment. I'm not sure that's true; I suspect that the arc is subtler than the usual narrative plot, but it's there.
—Mary
