Long considered one of the most gifted practitioners of the short story, Rick Bass is unsurpassed in his ability to perceive and portray the enduring truths of the human heart. Now, at last, we have the definitive collection of stories, new and old, from the writer Newsweek has called "an American classic." To read his fiction is to feel more alive -- connected, incandescently, to "the brief longshot of having been chosen for the human experience,"...