In the Loyal Mountains

by Rick Bass

• ISBN10: 0395877474
• ISBN13: 9780395877470
• Publish Date: 15 September 1997 (first published 1 January 1995)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 1 December 2011
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Imprint: Houghton Mifflin (Trade)
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 168
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

I had to read the first story again, “The History of Rodney.” Rodney, Mississippi: “The slow summer. The time when nothing moves forward, when everything pauses, and then stops. It’s a good idea.” The river is gone, the pigs are cursed generals, the town is twelve people.

“This place isn’t on the map, right?” Elizabeth will ask. It’s a game we play. We’re frightened of cities, of other people.
“It might as well not even exist,” I’ll tell her.
She seems reassured.

But, next is “Swamp Boy,” and I can’t stop there, next is “Fires.” There’s a History Channel show right now, Mountain Men, and one of the Men is Tom Oar from Yaak and his wife Nancy. I found it flipping through a channel and, immediately, “Tom and Nancy!” I said. Sure enough, not even a page into “Fires” and who should appear but, Tom and Nancy. See what I mean, the slim, pliable line?

“Turn back, you bastards!” Tom shouted happily. That woke the ducks in the pond nearby, and they began clucking amongst themselves. It was a reassuring sound. Nancy made Tom tie a rope around his waist and tie the other end around the chimney, in case he fell. But Tom said he wasn’t afraid of anything, and was going to live forever.

And then there’s “The Valley”:

There aren’t many people in this valley— twenty-six registered voters— and rather than disliking everyone, as I found it so easy to do in the city, I can now take time to love practically everyone.
I have to start small. I have to get it right.

And “The Legend of Pig-Eye,” and “The Wait”:

He’s suddenly an outlaw too, the happiest one, and I think that’s how it always goes, how the longer you go without something, the happier you are when you finally get it.

Before I knew it, it was “In The Loyal Mountains” and we were seventeen, “believing in things rather than understanding them,” and I had read the whole thing. Whoops. Except the exact opposite of “whoops.” More like, I couldn’t recommend something better.

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First reviewed, June 2011:

I’ve been reading a story a night, right before bed. I couldn’t recommend something better. Except for the nights I can’t stop without two or three.

This is pretty much the straight-up successor to The Watch, and that’s a beautiful thing.