SOURCE: A review of The Book of Yaak, in Western American Literature, Vol. 32, No. 2, Summer, 1997, p. 184–85.

In the following favorable review of The Book of Yaak, Huser commends Bass's passion, coherence of motif and place, and effective use of art for the advocacy of wilderness preservation.

I’ve finally finished reading Rick Bass’s The Book of Yaak. It took me a while. It was not tough reading or dull or unimportant. I just didn’t want to leave it—and because I was involved in my own attempt to save a sacred place, it spoke to me in a special way.

I’d heard Rick speak at a seminar on nature writing last year in Key West. He’d served on a panel dealing with art and advocacy chaired by Terry Tempest Williams, an artful advocate herself. The question seemed to be “Can good writing advocate?”

Certainly...