The Hermits Story is Rick Bass's best and most varied fiction yet. In the title story, a man and a woman travel across an eerily frozen lakeunder the ice. The Distance casts a skeptical eye on Thomas Jefferson through the lens of a Montana mans visit to Monticello. Eating begins with an owl being sucked into a canoe and ends with a man eating a town out of house and home, and The Cave is a stunning story of a man and woman lost in an abandoned mine. Other stories include The Fireman, Swans, The Prisoners, Presidents Day, Real Town, and Two Deer. Some of these stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, but for many readers, they wont even be the best in this collection. Every story in this book is remarkable in its own way, sure to please both new readers and avid fans of Rick Basss passionate, unmistakable voice.