A Party for the Girls

New York: New Directions, 1988.

The second of three story collections published by New Directions after Bates's death. Brad Hooper in Studies in Short Fiction writes that "anyone who has had the pleasure of a Bates story tends to remember him for three reasons. First, his exquisite style: his elegant but never prissy nor precious flow of words, in one beautiful sentence after another. Second, his considerable ability to conjure sensuous atmospheres—specifically, the tension, the steaminess, between a man and a woman aroused by each other. Third, his deft characterizations."

Reviews:

• Studies in Short Fiction (Fall 1988, p. 491, Brad Hooper, attached)

Contains: A Party for the Girls, The Mill, Summer in Salander, A Great Day for Bonzo, Death of a Huntsman, White Wind.