PW: Simmering New Fiction

Rick Bass's first full-length novel, Where the Sea Used to Be, is also enjoying good sales, especially at the independents. It's his 11th book -- Bass writes both fiction and nonfiction with the natural world always in strong focus. Houghton Mifflin published the book in mid-June and has gone back to press for 5000 more copies, bringing the in-print total to 30,000. Bass is in the midst of a summer-long national tour. He has appeared on four different NPR shows and will be taping Charlie Rose on July 30. Good Morning America highlighted the book in its summer reading round-up. His collection of stories, The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness, was named one of PW's best books of 1997.