SOURCE: Kamine, Mark. “The Macho Myth Unmasked.” New Leader 72, no. 3-4 (6 February 1989): 19-20.

In the following review of The Watch, Kamine cites the volume as impressive and praises Bass's well-crafted prose.

Over the past two years Rick Bass has published short fiction in the Paris Review, Esquire, GQ, and the Quarterly. His work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and New Writing from the South, and his was the opening story in The Pushcart Prize XIII. “The Watch,” the title piece of this first collection, will appear in the upcoming O'Henry Awards volume. All told, as impressive a record as any young writer of the '80s has compiled—and these have been boom years for young writers.

The book is equally impressive. Bass gives us more than well-crafted prose and the glimmerings of a voice; several of the stories are fully achieved, free from all...