A Thousand Deer: Four Generations of Hunting and the Hill Country

Prolific writer Bass (The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana) makes clear that no one in his extended family suffers from nature-deficit disorder. These 12 essays, all previously published elsewhere, form a seamless celebration of family, tradition, and nature as seen through the scope of deer-hunting. Bass focuses his nonfiction on the wild and is at his best when telling stories: helping his cousin dig a truck out of a gumbo sidetrack in the driving rain or taking his teenage daughter on her first hunt, where he observed the snow-quiet world and “tracks that reminded me of the trident calligraphy of shorebirds on the beach.” Bass draws his portraits of family and the cedar-studded hill country of Texas with care and grace. His descriptions are matched by insights: at his family’s annual hunt they spend time shaping stories, “even as we knew also it was more the tellers than the stories themselves who were being shaped.”