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Outerbridge Reach: A Literary Epic of Man Against the Sea in the Tradition of Conrad and Melville
In this towering story about a man pitting himself against the sea, against society, and against himself, Robert Stone again demonstrates that he is "one of the most impressive novelists of his generation" (New York Review of Books). Inviting comparison with the great sea novels of Conrad, Melville, and Hemingway, Outerbridge Reach is also the portrait of two men and the powerful, unforgettable woman they both love - and for whom they are both ready, in their very different ways, to stake everything. As the San Francisco Chronicle said, "Robert Stone asks questions of our time few writers could imagine and answers them in narratives few readers will ever quite forget."
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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727 people want to read
About the author
Robert Stone
30 books250 followersROBERT STONE was the author of seven novels: A Hall of Mirrors, Dog Soldiers (winner of the National Book Award), A Flag for Sunrise, Children of Light, Outerbridge Reach, Damascus Gate, and Bay of Souls. His story collection, Bear and His Daughter, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and his memoir, Prime Green, was published in 2006.
His work was typically characterized by psychological complexity, political concerns, and dark humor.
A lifelong adventurer who in his 20s befriended Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, and what he called ‘‘all those crazies’’ of the counterculture, Mr. Stone had a fateful affinity for outsiders, especially those who brought hard times on themselves. Starting with the 1966 novel ‘‘A Hall of Mirrors,’’ Mr. Stone set his stories everywhere from the American South to the Far East. He was a master of making art out of his character’s follies, whether the adulterous teacher in ‘‘Death of the Black-Haired Girl,’’ the fraudulent seafarer in ‘‘Outerbridge Reach,’’ or the besieged journalist in ‘‘Dog Soldiers,’’ winner of the National Book Award in 1975.
His work was typically characterized by psychological complexity, political concerns, and dark humor.
A lifelong adventurer who in his 20s befriended Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, and what he called ‘‘all those crazies’’ of the counterculture, Mr. Stone had a fateful affinity for outsiders, especially those who brought hard times on themselves. Starting with the 1966 novel ‘‘A Hall of Mirrors,’’ Mr. Stone set his stories everywhere from the American South to the Far East. He was a master of making art out of his character’s follies, whether the adulterous teacher in ‘‘Death of the Black-Haired Girl,’’ the fraudulent seafarer in ‘‘Outerbridge Reach,’’ or the besieged journalist in ‘‘Dog Soldiers,’’ winner of the National Book Award in 1975.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
November 16, 2013
This is one of my favorite novels of any kind. It brings together everything I like about Robert Stone: characters with great potential and terrible flaws, a variety of approaches to love, a strong feeling for place and for different kinds of work, physical danger described in unusual poetic terms while still being frightening, very dark humor and gorgeous prose. It feels grounded and whole in a way that his books don't always achieve, even though he's deliberately writing against his grain, giving two-thirds of the stage not to the wandering bohemian journalist character but to mainstream suburban New York Republicans. And despite being about people who don't know what they're doing, it's plotted like a graceful machine-- every step of the setup seems like a simple detail at the time, and then once the story gets going, those details align into something that feels inevitable.
The central event, a solo sailing race around the world, is sort of based on a real incident which would have made a good story by itself, but Stone uses very little of that story except for one particular infamously bad decision. The rest of it is perfectly constructed to examine how someone could make that decision, to imagine how the seeds of it might have been planted by interactions with other people without their awareness, and to relate it to the choices we make in less dramatic circumstances. Even though the characters are sometimes lost in introspection, the setting and the action are always very specific: this is how this or that person handles a boat, attends a convention, films an interview. The guy in the boat isn't just an abstract man facing nature and facing himself; his situation is influenced by his family and community and job, and even when he's alone it's a modern kind of solitude where you can make phone calls-- and that thread of contact affects the course of the story in a way that wouldn't have been possible in an earlier time and, for different reasons, wouldn't be possible now.
If you've ever read anything by this author, it's not really giving anything away to say that by the end of this book some extremely sad things have happened. The last page always kills me and makes me weepy; it's an ambiguous and in some ways hopeful ending, but it's not the kind of hope you would have hoped for. It's all worth it, though.
The central event, a solo sailing race around the world, is sort of based on a real incident which would have made a good story by itself, but Stone uses very little of that story except for one particular infamously bad decision. The rest of it is perfectly constructed to examine how someone could make that decision, to imagine how the seeds of it might have been planted by interactions with other people without their awareness, and to relate it to the choices we make in less dramatic circumstances. Even though the characters are sometimes lost in introspection, the setting and the action are always very specific: this is how this or that person handles a boat, attends a convention, films an interview. The guy in the boat isn't just an abstract man facing nature and facing himself; his situation is influenced by his family and community and job, and even when he's alone it's a modern kind of solitude where you can make phone calls-- and that thread of contact affects the course of the story in a way that wouldn't have been possible in an earlier time and, for different reasons, wouldn't be possible now.
If you've ever read anything by this author, it's not really giving anything away to say that by the end of this book some extremely sad things have happened. The last page always kills me and makes me weepy; it's an ambiguous and in some ways hopeful ending, but it's not the kind of hope you would have hoped for. It's all worth it, though.
December 26, 2012
Outerbridge Reach is a powerful book that grabbed my attention early and held me to the end. Stone draws his characters beautifully, but is unsparing in documenting their shortcomings. Like Moby Dick, it's a story about a man and a boat, but it's also about a quest. The main character, Owen Browne, has been leading an okay life as a salesman for a yacht company, but is also feeling less connected over time with the various aspects of his life. Suddenly he has a chance to change all of this when the millionaire owner of the company disappears just a few months before he is scheduled to participate in a race around the world. Browne offers to take over, but it becomes soon clear that he's in way over his head.
In a second plot line, a respected but cynical movie director, Ron Strickland, has signed a deal to film the race. Strickland is intrigued by Browne's willingness to take over the race and begins to insinuate himself into the lives of Browne, his wife Anne and their fifteen year old daughter in keeping with his cinema verite style. In the first half of the book, the we meet the other men who will be in the race and Browne does his best to prepare for the solo voyage around the world. Browne knows this kind of solo boating is way beyond his experience, but he hopes that he will learn enough before and during the race so that somehow it will all work out.
In the second half of the book, the race is on and Browne gets off to a good start in spite of his limited experience. Strickland has entrusted Browne with cameras in order to get additional footage that can be used for the planned documentary. Browne also writes copious notes in the ship's journal. Maybe, just maybe, this trip will truly be a triumph for him at all levels. Back on the mainland, Strickland, Anne and several other observers monitor the race based on radio transmissions, faxes and other communications. The book takes several strange turns as Browne gets deeper into pursuing his dream and also learns hard truths about himself and the technical limitations of his ship and his nautical skills. The worlds of reality, myth and magical thinking entwine as the voyage continues from sea to sea and Browne is pushed to his limits and beyond. In the meantime, Stickland pursues his agenda and is hoping that this documentary will truly be the breakout piece of work that vaults him to the next level with little thought for any collateral damage this might cause within the Browne family.
This kind of book requires patience from the reader, but the rewards are rich as Stone spins a powerful story and creates a series of memorable characters who collide and interact in surprising ways.
In a second plot line, a respected but cynical movie director, Ron Strickland, has signed a deal to film the race. Strickland is intrigued by Browne's willingness to take over the race and begins to insinuate himself into the lives of Browne, his wife Anne and their fifteen year old daughter in keeping with his cinema verite style. In the first half of the book, the we meet the other men who will be in the race and Browne does his best to prepare for the solo voyage around the world. Browne knows this kind of solo boating is way beyond his experience, but he hopes that he will learn enough before and during the race so that somehow it will all work out.
In the second half of the book, the race is on and Browne gets off to a good start in spite of his limited experience. Strickland has entrusted Browne with cameras in order to get additional footage that can be used for the planned documentary. Browne also writes copious notes in the ship's journal. Maybe, just maybe, this trip will truly be a triumph for him at all levels. Back on the mainland, Strickland, Anne and several other observers monitor the race based on radio transmissions, faxes and other communications. The book takes several strange turns as Browne gets deeper into pursuing his dream and also learns hard truths about himself and the technical limitations of his ship and his nautical skills. The worlds of reality, myth and magical thinking entwine as the voyage continues from sea to sea and Browne is pushed to his limits and beyond. In the meantime, Stickland pursues his agenda and is hoping that this documentary will truly be the breakout piece of work that vaults him to the next level with little thought for any collateral damage this might cause within the Browne family.
This kind of book requires patience from the reader, but the rewards are rich as Stone spins a powerful story and creates a series of memorable characters who collide and interact in surprising ways.
January 22, 2008
When a 400 page book is a page turner, it must be pretty good. I can't even bring myself to write any kind of review. Two minutes ago I read about a woman closing the door to her house. That's the ending, sucker. To read this book and cozy up to the characters is to put your consciousness inside of a gray whale calf cut away from its mother, pummeled and thrashed by killer whales for hours until it dies and is eaten.
February 19, 2009
EPIC! What a journey Mr. Stone takes his readers in this wonderful book.
January 4, 2014
I can't get enough of Robert Stone. His characters are complex and fallible. Like Phillip K. Dick, he weaves a lot of different points of view that change how you see each one. They have fantastic qualities and weak and despicable ones. Here, a documentary filmmaker with the ability of a cold perception stands as a commentary of storytelling itself. But there is more than that in this tale about a man against the sea. Like _Children of Light_ and _Dog Soldiers_, Stone has these unreal climaxes that seem almost akin to magical realism; however, it is psychosis, schizophrenia, and exhaustion that really brings them on, but they are beautiful and strange just the same:
"Finally, broken-willed, he consented to turn, dreading the thing that might confront him in the window. There, in place of the declining sun, he saw innumerable misshapen discs stretched in limitless perspective to an expanded horizon. It was a parody of the honest mariner's sighting. Each warped ball was the reflection of another in an index glass, each one hung suspended, half submerged in a frozen sea. They extended forever, to infinity, in a universe of infinite singularities. In the ocean they suggested, there could be no measure and no reason. There could be neither direction nor horizon. It was an ocean without a morning, without sanity or light" (362).
"Finally, broken-willed, he consented to turn, dreading the thing that might confront him in the window. There, in place of the declining sun, he saw innumerable misshapen discs stretched in limitless perspective to an expanded horizon. It was a parody of the honest mariner's sighting. Each warped ball was the reflection of another in an index glass, each one hung suspended, half submerged in a frozen sea. They extended forever, to infinity, in a universe of infinite singularities. In the ocean they suggested, there could be no measure and no reason. There could be neither direction nor horizon. It was an ocean without a morning, without sanity or light" (362).
March 16, 2022
A good book but not one of my favorite Robert Stone books. I would rate it somewhere between a 3.5 and 4. It is about a man with little sailing experience entering a round the world solo sailing race. This sounds like an exciting premise for a story but it turned out that this was only a small part of the book, the majority of the book was taken up with peripheral subject matters. The man on the sailboat was a man named Owen Browne who worked for a yacht company and was asked to sail the boat when the owner of the company, who was going to sail it, disappeared. Also in the book was a film maker named Ron Strickland who was having an affair with Owens wife, Anne, while Owen was sailing in the race. The book would have been much better if it concentrated on the sailing race and left the peripheral stuff to a minimum.
A note I want to add to my review is that Owen Browne's sailing experience in this race appears to be based on a true story of a man who was in a similar race and faked his logs and eventually committed suicide as told in a book I read several years ago titled "Voyage of Madmen".
A note I want to add to my review is that Owen Browne's sailing experience in this race appears to be based on a true story of a man who was in a similar race and faked his logs and eventually committed suicide as told in a book I read several years ago titled "Voyage of Madmen".
November 2, 2007
Starts so slowly and dully that I doubt it would ever be published these days without an already well known author. The entire first half is background for the second half. The story of an improbable sailing trip, an improbable love affair and an improbable suicide. It is serviceably written, as far as grammar, etc., but there is no foreshadowing, nothing convincing, and the attempts to include philosophy entirely flat and dull. A sheltered but gorgeous republican baby boomer wife falls for a sleazy stuttering filmmaker (having met his prostitute girlfriend) while her husband, an equally gorgeous republican yacht salesman, attempts to circumnavigate the globe in his company's poorly made product. At the end, it's tied in a bow. Remind me never to read anything else by this old white male author, pictured on the back on his yacht.
April 3, 2008
One of the best novels I've ever read. Based very loosely on a true story, it's about a marketing executive for a yacht company who embarks on a round-the-world solo sailing contest and then runs into a LOT of trouble. Meanwhile, his wife is back home, dealing with her husband's quixotic quest and the attentions of a documentary filmmaker who seems pretty cleary based on Errol Morris. Terrific book.
February 20, 2012
Although I can agree with other reviewers that the book is in some ways Hemingwayan, Stone's language lacked a comparably inviting luster. In addition to the dull prose, the story was predictable and the characters undeveloped and trite. The words that a friend of mine wrote in a journal required by her teacher while she was reading OLD MAN AND THE SEA sum up my feelings of the various scenes in the book perfectly, "Same shit. Different day."
June 15, 2024
This is an absolutely tremendous book — the best, in fact, of the three I have read. Whereas Dog Soldiers and A Flag For Sunrise, both already 5-star books, were drenched in noir and intrigue and action, this one leaves all that behind, and simply tells a profound and deeply troubling and purely human story. There are no guns; no revolutions. Just sorrow and pity.
November 16, 2017
Top 3 favorite novels of all time. Longtime Stone devotee. Got a few chapters in on a softcover used edition and decided I needed a hardcover first. Found a leatherbound, signed first edition online for only $7 or something. Have all his short stories, read Dogs of War--I'm going after the entire ouevre.
But it's the story, the writing that carries this thing. The Triangulation here is exquisite; there's humor, pathos, poetry and pure truth about big picture stuff that I've never come across in a novel before and I've read many fine ones. This is widely recognized as a classic of the form, a true masterpiece. No way could I overstate how good this book is.
It's about integrity, sailing, Vietnam, corporate America, human frailty--and so much more. All the hallmarks of a good Stone story: character (in this case, a woman--not uncommon in his writing) with a substance abuse problem; sex; competition; interior monologues for each of the principal characters brimming with granite-hard wisdom. Nobody writes like Stone. His attention to detail, his ability to subtly educate and indoctrinate the reader into just about any enterprise is unsurpassed.
Stone, you magnificent bastard--I read your book.
But it's the story, the writing that carries this thing. The Triangulation here is exquisite; there's humor, pathos, poetry and pure truth about big picture stuff that I've never come across in a novel before and I've read many fine ones. This is widely recognized as a classic of the form, a true masterpiece. No way could I overstate how good this book is.
It's about integrity, sailing, Vietnam, corporate America, human frailty--and so much more. All the hallmarks of a good Stone story: character (in this case, a woman--not uncommon in his writing) with a substance abuse problem; sex; competition; interior monologues for each of the principal characters brimming with granite-hard wisdom. Nobody writes like Stone. His attention to detail, his ability to subtly educate and indoctrinate the reader into just about any enterprise is unsurpassed.
Stone, you magnificent bastard--I read your book.
September 5, 2015
Outerbridge Reach, a.k.a. Rich White People Problems. Somehow, Robert Stone has made a round-the-world, solo boat race utterly boring and pretentious. The principal characters are despicable, New York naval gazing angsties, and the slow-poke events that unfold are telegraphed, out-and-out melodrama. I've been a fan of Stone's other books, so this was a huge disappointment.
May 12, 2009
good writer, but in the words of Homer J. "BORING!"
October 18, 2023
I buy/get a ton of books. If there's something of interest in a book there's a decent chance I'll get the book. Reading or finishing them, that's another story. I bought this book many moons ago. Finally got around to reading it. And I finished it. And since it's 400 pages (not long but long enough) it was only because the writing (unlike my meandering here) excelled.
Even the characters except for Strickland and Anne weren't enthralling, while the pervasive nautical language throughout, isn't my cup of tea either, though I was impressed with the authors knowledge of it. The story builds and builds and builds (sometimes too slowly) and just hooked me as I wondered what the hell was going to happen to these characters who I don't particularly care about, while sensing this was about something worthwhile. I can't even say what that is (yet). It really was just great writing.
Even the characters except for Strickland and Anne weren't enthralling, while the pervasive nautical language throughout, isn't my cup of tea either, though I was impressed with the authors knowledge of it. The story builds and builds and builds (sometimes too slowly) and just hooked me as I wondered what the hell was going to happen to these characters who I don't particularly care about, while sensing this was about something worthwhile. I can't even say what that is (yet). It really was just great writing.
July 7, 2022
This is what I wrote a few years ago when I rated the book three stars. "Off to a strong start and very nautical then moves into a sort of Ancient Mariner mode that I did not enjoy so much. The protagonist is an Annapolis graduate who is at book's beginning a yacht broker who undertakes to trial a new design. Psychological issues. Recommend to anyone who likes yachts or sea stories or single-handed sailing stories."
After a recent re-read I've added another star and grafted to the last line "and, equally important, stories about long marriages that don't end in bitterness and remorse."
After a recent re-read I've added another star and grafted to the last line "and, equally important, stories about long marriages that don't end in bitterness and remorse."
December 5, 2016
Moby Dick as imagined by Joan Didion. A man determined to discovery reality and truth embarks on a solo sailing rice around the world. It's hard to describe what happens without spoilers, so I won't. Suffice it to say that some of the book is incomprehensible, some is wonderful, and some chokes on its own cleverness and irony.
December 11, 2025
I was introduced to Robert Stone in college with a short story he wrote that left a lasting impact on me (“Helping”). Years later, hunting for a good book to read after re-reading it, I figured why not pick up one his feature length novels?
Perhaps it was my high expectations, but I was left disappointed. This was doubly surprising considering it deals with themes that I often find intriguing. Existential angst, the anxiety of unrealized dreams, depression. Stone grapples with the ultimate midlife crisis, and yet it all feels so hollow, and not even in an interesting way.
The characters I found unrealistic and frustrating, and while a certain amount of caricature is allotted to creative license, it got downright ridiculous at some point. Stone never quite manages to balance the shallow banality of the two main characters (Owen and Anne) with anything that would make them interesting enough to care about. They are pathetically helpless. I get that “that’s the point” but I’ve read better books that accomplish the same without making the characters so utterly devoid of character or agency. Falling back on self-referential meta-analysis to try to recursively justify poorly written characters is lazy.
Don’t even get me started on the character of Strickland. I was so mad at this character from start to finish. I suspect this character is an idealized self-insert for Stone himself, which, brother, if that’s true, you did yourself dirty. He is by far the most despicable and annoying character in the whole story. While Owen and Anne spend their time in the narrative being cosmically brutalized for the sins of their banality, Strickland is so supremely hip, so utterly cool and above reproach (despite being really the worst kind of human being), he appears utterly immune to the karmic/poetic justice that is the byline of this novel, short of the lightest of consequences he faces near the end. If the point is that it’s all just arbitrary and there is no justice, why does the theme of karmic justice apply to every other character in this novel but him?
I suspect having read more about Stone the answer comes in that he was a product of his time. The old guard of the old counter culture, when the worst sin one could imagine was being relatively milquetoast, suburban parents, with rather ordinary professions who skewed center-right on some political issues - the horror. This of course is contrasted with the infinitely hip, young, international documentarian living in a NYC penthouse with a colorful collage of escorts, publicists, toadies, and an endless cavalcade of drugs, bohemian records and parties (which he drives to in his Porsche, of course). This is played straight by the way, as much as it sounds like satire.
I don’t know, maybe this just hit different in 1992 than it does in 2025. It feels like if ever there were a character in need of some poetic justice, it would have been Strickland, but it never comes. Even when it finally comes, it feels random and apropos of nothing to do with him as a person.
All in all, I feel that this probably should have been a short story. At 410 pages, the book feels long. There is an invitation to a mystery in the beginning (a missing CEO) which goes nowhere. The first half of the book is preparation for the main event when Mr. Browne goes to sea, and is an agonizingly long setup to essentially say “these characters are in the midst of a midlife crisis” and not much else. The second half begins interestingly because as I reader I suspected Browne would have to finally confront his demons without distraction, and we’d get some meat on this story. However the authors clearly ran out of material to work with because he decided to have the character simply go insane. The next 200 pages or so are filled with increasingly inane ramblings that resemble the author’s best impression at a psychotic break. Never have I found a depiction of psychosis to be more boring.
Anne spends her time naively destroying her life. I understand a woman like this might be a little sheltered and naive, but she goes naive to “born yesterday”, again very frustrating.
The imagery that abounds is peppered with language that spells out the subtext forthrightly “You see, the setting sun is a metaphor for the fading of youth and unrealized dreams” and so on. Yes, yes, obligatorily profound, yet but also profoundly uninteresting. This is punctuated by a dizzying array of references to nautical terminology that will be completely foreign to you unless you sail. The protagonist of Owen Browne was a middling seaman, so the author could have used him to explain what’s going on with the boat in layman’s terms, but you see Robert Stone the author is an avid seaman IRL so he just kind of assumes you know what he’s constantly referring to.
So yeah, frustrating, disappointing, overly long, and seemingly confused themes. What was the message after all? If you’re a bland, middle-aged suburbanite, don’t bother chasing your dreams and simply embrace mediocrity? Or perhaps become a Bohemian hipster who beats women bloody when they spurn your advances and you’ll get a Porsche? Is it all just hopeless? Or most likely of all, perhaps the message is if you’re an author you should consider a bit more where your story is going and what the point is before you start writing it.
Perhaps it was my high expectations, but I was left disappointed. This was doubly surprising considering it deals with themes that I often find intriguing. Existential angst, the anxiety of unrealized dreams, depression. Stone grapples with the ultimate midlife crisis, and yet it all feels so hollow, and not even in an interesting way.
The characters I found unrealistic and frustrating, and while a certain amount of caricature is allotted to creative license, it got downright ridiculous at some point. Stone never quite manages to balance the shallow banality of the two main characters (Owen and Anne) with anything that would make them interesting enough to care about. They are pathetically helpless. I get that “that’s the point” but I’ve read better books that accomplish the same without making the characters so utterly devoid of character or agency. Falling back on self-referential meta-analysis to try to recursively justify poorly written characters is lazy.
Don’t even get me started on the character of Strickland. I was so mad at this character from start to finish. I suspect this character is an idealized self-insert for Stone himself, which, brother, if that’s true, you did yourself dirty. He is by far the most despicable and annoying character in the whole story. While Owen and Anne spend their time in the narrative being cosmically brutalized for the sins of their banality, Strickland is so supremely hip, so utterly cool and above reproach (despite being really the worst kind of human being), he appears utterly immune to the karmic/poetic justice that is the byline of this novel, short of the lightest of consequences he faces near the end. If the point is that it’s all just arbitrary and there is no justice, why does the theme of karmic justice apply to every other character in this novel but him?
I suspect having read more about Stone the answer comes in that he was a product of his time. The old guard of the old counter culture, when the worst sin one could imagine was being relatively milquetoast, suburban parents, with rather ordinary professions who skewed center-right on some political issues - the horror. This of course is contrasted with the infinitely hip, young, international documentarian living in a NYC penthouse with a colorful collage of escorts, publicists, toadies, and an endless cavalcade of drugs, bohemian records and parties (which he drives to in his Porsche, of course). This is played straight by the way, as much as it sounds like satire.
I don’t know, maybe this just hit different in 1992 than it does in 2025. It feels like if ever there were a character in need of some poetic justice, it would have been Strickland, but it never comes. Even when it finally comes, it feels random and apropos of nothing to do with him as a person.
All in all, I feel that this probably should have been a short story. At 410 pages, the book feels long. There is an invitation to a mystery in the beginning (a missing CEO) which goes nowhere. The first half of the book is preparation for the main event when Mr. Browne goes to sea, and is an agonizingly long setup to essentially say “these characters are in the midst of a midlife crisis” and not much else. The second half begins interestingly because as I reader I suspected Browne would have to finally confront his demons without distraction, and we’d get some meat on this story. However the authors clearly ran out of material to work with because he decided to have the character simply go insane. The next 200 pages or so are filled with increasingly inane ramblings that resemble the author’s best impression at a psychotic break. Never have I found a depiction of psychosis to be more boring.
Anne spends her time naively destroying her life. I understand a woman like this might be a little sheltered and naive, but she goes naive to “born yesterday”, again very frustrating.
The imagery that abounds is peppered with language that spells out the subtext forthrightly “You see, the setting sun is a metaphor for the fading of youth and unrealized dreams” and so on. Yes, yes, obligatorily profound, yet but also profoundly uninteresting. This is punctuated by a dizzying array of references to nautical terminology that will be completely foreign to you unless you sail. The protagonist of Owen Browne was a middling seaman, so the author could have used him to explain what’s going on with the boat in layman’s terms, but you see Robert Stone the author is an avid seaman IRL so he just kind of assumes you know what he’s constantly referring to.
So yeah, frustrating, disappointing, overly long, and seemingly confused themes. What was the message after all? If you’re a bland, middle-aged suburbanite, don’t bother chasing your dreams and simply embrace mediocrity? Or perhaps become a Bohemian hipster who beats women bloody when they spurn your advances and you’ll get a Porsche? Is it all just hopeless? Or most likely of all, perhaps the message is if you’re an author you should consider a bit more where your story is going and what the point is before you start writing it.
April 8, 2011
An extremely disappointing novel of middle class angst. I had heard good things about the book and about Stone's work in general, but I found the book to be surprisingly bad.
June 3, 2022
“He had begged all his life for such a chance and all his life done what had to be done and never once regretted risk or contest. Quite the opposite, he had always regretted the lost chances, played safe and been sorry. It seemed to him he was dying of the last of his youth and strength as day after gray day they went untested and his blood thickened. Now the action had come for him and he was afraid. Such variety, he thought, had fear.”
“The ocean encompassed everything, and everything could be understood in terms of it. Everything true about it was true about life in general.”
A confounding book, a troubling book, a page turner of a book, full of hallucinations, dreams and “should’ve beens.” It’s more than (as its blurb suggests) a book about an around-the-world race or a Melvillian or Conradian novel that pits man against nature/God and more a novel about three different people pitted against their expectations. Owen is a salesman/copywriter who could’ve been a real soldier or sailor or capital-h “Hero;” Strickland is a lothario of a documentary filmmaker who could’ve been a real artist; and Anne is a dutiful wife and creative who could’ve been, well, anything. And in the end, what are they all but a failure of their expectations? They are ultimately square relics of a past age confronting their fading youth.
It is also a book about the Vietnam War, it’s characters the standard tropes: Owen the patriotic soldier who “saw some things,” Anne the faithful home front wife, Strickland the anti-war artist. To ask our central question differently: do they live up to their youthful potential? Or are they simply stuck in the patterns the War entrenched them in? As Anne thinks, midway through Owen’s journey, “It had turned out not to be like the war. They were not young anymore. Then she had been proud in the teeth of the world. Now, entitled to conventional, respectable pride, she found her only security in dread, as though her fear were his ransom.”
Now to say it’s not at all a “seafaring book” would be a lie; the best parts of this novel were Owen’s hallucinatory reveries at sea, especially his time spent in the caldera. It was when he was actually pushed up against his boundaries (perceived and otherwise) that we got to see how interesting (pitiable?) he really was. There’s more nautical jargon than you can shake a stick at, so that helps too.
What’s also really interesting is how much these characters really struck me as truly disgusting. All of the men were varying shades of xenophobic, racist, and misogynistic—Strickland overtly so, Owen more paternalistically so. At first it felt like a judgment call from Robert Stone, a bit of his own views seeping in, but it became clearer as time went on that none of the characters are to be admired.
The real Hero here is the prose, but on the level of the phrase: “…whose adventures in the jungle of young America filled him with dread,” “…yet another yuppie playing pirate in the salty world of big boats,” “His voice suggested gulls over India Wharf,” “Out among the slot machines, several thousand dull-eyed, emphysemic proletarians pumped away in a hereafter of mirrors,” “…he saw how incredibly complicated the actual colors were and how the shapes were unknown to geometry, beautiful but useless in any sort of measurement.”
One final Owen passage that perfectly combines his perspectives (it’s long):
“One evening, he was on deck listening to the radio when the sky filled with colored light. Curving bands in violet and dark green undulated across the dark blue sky. Bank after bank of purple light radiated from the southern horizon in regular repeated patterns. So orderly were the emanations that they seemed to Browne to be a kind of signal. It was hard to believe that no unitary purpose was behind them. The aurora reminded Browne of the night sky over the Song Chong valley in 1969. He had seen the most spectacular displays there, tracer rounds in red and green, parachute flares every night. Behind each illumination was some intention, it was being organized and coordinated, but to see it all was to know that things had gone beyond the compass of human will.”
“The ocean encompassed everything, and everything could be understood in terms of it. Everything true about it was true about life in general.”
A confounding book, a troubling book, a page turner of a book, full of hallucinations, dreams and “should’ve beens.” It’s more than (as its blurb suggests) a book about an around-the-world race or a Melvillian or Conradian novel that pits man against nature/God and more a novel about three different people pitted against their expectations. Owen is a salesman/copywriter who could’ve been a real soldier or sailor or capital-h “Hero;” Strickland is a lothario of a documentary filmmaker who could’ve been a real artist; and Anne is a dutiful wife and creative who could’ve been, well, anything. And in the end, what are they all but a failure of their expectations? They are ultimately square relics of a past age confronting their fading youth.
It is also a book about the Vietnam War, it’s characters the standard tropes: Owen the patriotic soldier who “saw some things,” Anne the faithful home front wife, Strickland the anti-war artist. To ask our central question differently: do they live up to their youthful potential? Or are they simply stuck in the patterns the War entrenched them in? As Anne thinks, midway through Owen’s journey, “It had turned out not to be like the war. They were not young anymore. Then she had been proud in the teeth of the world. Now, entitled to conventional, respectable pride, she found her only security in dread, as though her fear were his ransom.”
Now to say it’s not at all a “seafaring book” would be a lie; the best parts of this novel were Owen’s hallucinatory reveries at sea, especially his time spent in the caldera. It was when he was actually pushed up against his boundaries (perceived and otherwise) that we got to see how interesting (pitiable?) he really was. There’s more nautical jargon than you can shake a stick at, so that helps too.
What’s also really interesting is how much these characters really struck me as truly disgusting. All of the men were varying shades of xenophobic, racist, and misogynistic—Strickland overtly so, Owen more paternalistically so. At first it felt like a judgment call from Robert Stone, a bit of his own views seeping in, but it became clearer as time went on that none of the characters are to be admired.
The real Hero here is the prose, but on the level of the phrase: “…whose adventures in the jungle of young America filled him with dread,” “…yet another yuppie playing pirate in the salty world of big boats,” “His voice suggested gulls over India Wharf,” “Out among the slot machines, several thousand dull-eyed, emphysemic proletarians pumped away in a hereafter of mirrors,” “…he saw how incredibly complicated the actual colors were and how the shapes were unknown to geometry, beautiful but useless in any sort of measurement.”
One final Owen passage that perfectly combines his perspectives (it’s long):
“One evening, he was on deck listening to the radio when the sky filled with colored light. Curving bands in violet and dark green undulated across the dark blue sky. Bank after bank of purple light radiated from the southern horizon in regular repeated patterns. So orderly were the emanations that they seemed to Browne to be a kind of signal. It was hard to believe that no unitary purpose was behind them. The aurora reminded Browne of the night sky over the Song Chong valley in 1969. He had seen the most spectacular displays there, tracer rounds in red and green, parachute flares every night. Behind each illumination was some intention, it was being organized and coordinated, but to see it all was to know that things had gone beyond the compass of human will.”
June 11, 2024
Stone's bio speaks of his love of a good maritime story. This book was inspired by a 1960s attempt at an around-the-world sailing record that Stone followed.
In this book, Stone splits the action into two. Browne is a technical writer and sales representative for a yacht manufacturer. Browne is also an amateur sailor. When his company's young and flamboyant CEO disappears in the wake of charges of accounting fraud, the opening for a solo around-the-world sailing competition in one of the company's vessels falls to Browne.
Browne has an attractive wife Anne and a young teen daughter Maggie. His marriage and family life has settled into complacency. Both Anne and Browne feel the pressure of the monotony, though continue on. There are still remnants of past affection between the two. The race, though fraught with danger and a long separation, offers an escape and a welcome shake-up to the ennui of the couple.
The company has hired a respected documentary filmmaker named Strickland to record Browne's preparation and adventures in his quest to win the race. Since Browne will be sailing alone, Strickland provides Browne with sound and film equipment for the boat. In the meantime, Strickland periodically visits Anne and Maggie to capture film footage of Browne's family as he attempts his months long sailing adventure.
The chapters alternate between Browne's sailing adventures and Strickland and Anne's story. Stone served in the navy. He describes perils, experiences and challenges of sailing with meticulous details and care. The toil, mentally, physically and spiritually are tremendous. Browne begins to lose touch with reality and finds himself tuning in regularly to a Christian broadcast. His range of emotions are volatile and intense. Browne goes from feelings of elation, spiritualism, despair, loneliness, freedom, exhaustion and fear from moment to moment. The sea sends a cascade of sensations and thoughts that overwhelm Browne.
The difference between Strickland and the prerace Browne are stark. Unlike the staid Browne, Strickland is an artist, a schemer, and a free-spirit. Strickland is immediately taken with Anne and works to seduce her. He sees the boredom and lifeless maritage between Browne and Anne and offers himself as an invigorating change. Anne is initially reticent and even repelled by Strickland, but later finds it hard to dispute that he offers vitality and excitement that is absent from her life.
In this book, Stone's plot and characters are clear. Much more so than his earlier books "Dog Soldiers" and especially "A Flag for Sunrise." That said, the three primary characters are not your traditional protagonists. They are real people with strengths and weaknesses. Stone spends as much time exploring his characters defects and less admirable actions as their merits and good deeds. Stone, like Strickland, is faithful to his art and his worldview at the expense of commercial viability and popularity. He views the glass half-empty and refuses to please the reader with more pleasant characters or outcomes. What we know from Browne's disassociation from reality is that perception matters, and in Stone's eyes, people are flawed, craven, and weak. Stone is a master of words and descriptions and is faithful to his experiences. What is truth? Stone speaks his truth and there is no disputing his intentions. His tone is somber but sincere.
In this book, Stone splits the action into two. Browne is a technical writer and sales representative for a yacht manufacturer. Browne is also an amateur sailor. When his company's young and flamboyant CEO disappears in the wake of charges of accounting fraud, the opening for a solo around-the-world sailing competition in one of the company's vessels falls to Browne.
Browne has an attractive wife Anne and a young teen daughter Maggie. His marriage and family life has settled into complacency. Both Anne and Browne feel the pressure of the monotony, though continue on. There are still remnants of past affection between the two. The race, though fraught with danger and a long separation, offers an escape and a welcome shake-up to the ennui of the couple.
The company has hired a respected documentary filmmaker named Strickland to record Browne's preparation and adventures in his quest to win the race. Since Browne will be sailing alone, Strickland provides Browne with sound and film equipment for the boat. In the meantime, Strickland periodically visits Anne and Maggie to capture film footage of Browne's family as he attempts his months long sailing adventure.
The chapters alternate between Browne's sailing adventures and Strickland and Anne's story. Stone served in the navy. He describes perils, experiences and challenges of sailing with meticulous details and care. The toil, mentally, physically and spiritually are tremendous. Browne begins to lose touch with reality and finds himself tuning in regularly to a Christian broadcast. His range of emotions are volatile and intense. Browne goes from feelings of elation, spiritualism, despair, loneliness, freedom, exhaustion and fear from moment to moment. The sea sends a cascade of sensations and thoughts that overwhelm Browne.
The difference between Strickland and the prerace Browne are stark. Unlike the staid Browne, Strickland is an artist, a schemer, and a free-spirit. Strickland is immediately taken with Anne and works to seduce her. He sees the boredom and lifeless maritage between Browne and Anne and offers himself as an invigorating change. Anne is initially reticent and even repelled by Strickland, but later finds it hard to dispute that he offers vitality and excitement that is absent from her life.
In this book, Stone's plot and characters are clear. Much more so than his earlier books "Dog Soldiers" and especially "A Flag for Sunrise." That said, the three primary characters are not your traditional protagonists. They are real people with strengths and weaknesses. Stone spends as much time exploring his characters defects and less admirable actions as their merits and good deeds. Stone, like Strickland, is faithful to his art and his worldview at the expense of commercial viability and popularity. He views the glass half-empty and refuses to please the reader with more pleasant characters or outcomes. What we know from Browne's disassociation from reality is that perception matters, and in Stone's eyes, people are flawed, craven, and weak. Stone is a master of words and descriptions and is faithful to his experiences. What is truth? Stone speaks his truth and there is no disputing his intentions. His tone is somber but sincere.
fic-guided
August 9, 2020Stone started writing late in life and accumulated his now substantial reputation carefully and gradually. His first novel, Hall of Mirrors (1967), a study of moral decay in New Orleans, established him as a Graham Greenian novelist of the ‘why this is hell, nor am I out of it’ kind. Planet Stone is not a jolly place. His second novel, Dog Soldiers (1974) – often cited as the best novel to come out of his country’s Vietnam trauma – projected an infernal vision of modern America, and mounted a powerful refutation of the Nixonian ‘peace with honour’ nonsense. A torture scene, enhanced by LSD, sticks in the mind as horrible in ways not even de Sade could imagine. Outerbridge Reach, Stone’s fifth novel, is a profound meditation on spiritual loneliness, infused with cosmic pessimism. The plot is almost entirely situational. A Donald Trump-like magnate, of playboy temperament, resolves to compete in a round-the-world solo sailing race to publicise a new design of yacht his firm has developed. There is a financial scandal and the playboy mariner goes to ground, not to sea. His place at the helm is taken by one of his firm’s salesmen. Owen Browne is a veteran of Annapolis and Vietnam, happily married, the world assumes, and clean-cut. But inwardly as his closest friend perceives he is a seething mass of spiritual discontent.
Browne’s firm has recruited a film-maker to record his voyage from a shore-base (this dual-hero scheme – one who acts and one who watches – is standard in Stone’s fiction). A decadent hipster, Ronald Strickland made his reputation with a documentary satirising America’s involvement in Vietnam. He is totally cynical.
Browne’s all-plastic-and-fibreglass vessel fails its great test. It’s a flop. As he founders in the southern Atlantic he decides to fake his voyage, on the grounds that the only truth at sea is the truth you make. He sabotages his transponder, compiles false logs and marks time, intending to pick up his competitors on their way back and beat them to the finishing line. But as he drifts in the empty ocean, religious mania overtakes him and he walks off his boat having discovered, as he thinks, the secret of the universe. Meanwhile, back on shore, Strickland seduces Mrs Browne.
Stone served in the US Navy as a young man, is a lifelong yachtsman, and knows his nautical ropes. He was resident in the UK in the late 1960s during a period of national excitement about round-the-world sailing exploits, with heroes such as Sir Francis Chichester regarded as ‘New Elizabethans’ – modern-day successors to England’s great sixteenth-century buccaneers. What seems particularly to have caught Stone’s imagination was the strange voyage of Donald Crowhurst in the 1968, Sunday Times-sponsored ‘Golden Globe’ circumnavigation competition. Crowhurst set out in his ‘revolutionary’ trimaran. It proved inadequate. He hid himself in the southern Atlantic, faked his logs, and intended to pick up the race on the return leg and win by fraud. But, in his loneliness, Crowhurst succumbed to religious mania – as his increasingly odd logbook entries record – and his boat was later found enigmatically empty.
Stone’s book sailed high for nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and still drifts, gloomily, in its oceanic pessimism a prose Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.
Browne’s firm has recruited a film-maker to record his voyage from a shore-base (this dual-hero scheme – one who acts and one who watches – is standard in Stone’s fiction). A decadent hipster, Ronald Strickland made his reputation with a documentary satirising America’s involvement in Vietnam. He is totally cynical.
Browne’s all-plastic-and-fibreglass vessel fails its great test. It’s a flop. As he founders in the southern Atlantic he decides to fake his voyage, on the grounds that the only truth at sea is the truth you make. He sabotages his transponder, compiles false logs and marks time, intending to pick up his competitors on their way back and beat them to the finishing line. But as he drifts in the empty ocean, religious mania overtakes him and he walks off his boat having discovered, as he thinks, the secret of the universe. Meanwhile, back on shore, Strickland seduces Mrs Browne.
Stone served in the US Navy as a young man, is a lifelong yachtsman, and knows his nautical ropes. He was resident in the UK in the late 1960s during a period of national excitement about round-the-world sailing exploits, with heroes such as Sir Francis Chichester regarded as ‘New Elizabethans’ – modern-day successors to England’s great sixteenth-century buccaneers. What seems particularly to have caught Stone’s imagination was the strange voyage of Donald Crowhurst in the 1968, Sunday Times-sponsored ‘Golden Globe’ circumnavigation competition. Crowhurst set out in his ‘revolutionary’ trimaran. It proved inadequate. He hid himself in the southern Atlantic, faked his logs, and intended to pick up the race on the return leg and win by fraud. But, in his loneliness, Crowhurst succumbed to religious mania – as his increasingly odd logbook entries record – and his boat was later found enigmatically empty.
Stone’s book sailed high for nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and still drifts, gloomily, in its oceanic pessimism a prose Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 6, 2024
“The documentary had been no different from a hundred other programs that had offended Brown with their liberal humility and left-wing bias. But the vision of its imagined country, a homeland that could function as both community and cause, was one that remained with him. Browne felt his own country had failed him in that regard. It was agreeable to think such a place might exist, even as home to the enemy. But no such place existed” (44).
“A second boatwright wandered over from the shed, a sallow man with a long face and a bony, prominent nose.
‘The season ain’t started yet, fella.’
Together, Browne thought, the two of them embodied the spirit of No Can Do. It was everywhere lately, poisoning life and the country. He was not in the mood to be accommodating” (70).
“‘What dreadful noise of water in mine ears! What ugly sights of death…’ He knew that one” (166). (From Richard III)
“Carefully, he examined his imagined positions on the chart. All the stories were embroidered, so it was said. Sailors privately ridiculed each other’s accounts. No one had ever brought the truth ashore. It was not to be had” (334).
“People in that business don’t know from one season to the next what will sell for them. It’s a pseudo-rational process. They’re medicine men. If it rains, they say they did it. If not, they blame someone else” (353).
“The trick was to take pleasure in knowing what was true and to deprive the rest of the world of that knowledge. That was the power suggested in the Bible stories. The power of command over reality consisted in being party to its nature and possessing the knowledge exclusively. All at once Browne understood that such power would always be denied him.
‘I can’t do it,’ he said aloud. His voice echoed powerfully off the surrounding rocks” (360).
“The ocean encompassed everything, and everything could be understood in terms of it. Everything true about it was true about life in general” (409).
March 15, 2024
A fine enough story that does compel you to turn to the next page. Stone creates a world populated by strange characters with odd dialog, thoughts, innuendos, behaviors. The label "fiction" - not in our usual understanding of the word - aptly applies to his perceptions and portrayals of quotidian actions laden with subliminal portent.
Quote page 280 "...consciousness had mainly been a synonym for being awake and a tool with which to discharge responsibilities. Self-observation made her feel more and more like..." etc.
Writers' technical observation: Part Two, the turning point, exactly halfway.
Vocabulary page 188 "haruspication."
Quote page 280 "...consciousness had mainly been a synonym for being awake and a tool with which to discharge responsibilities. Self-observation made her feel more and more like..." etc.
Writers' technical observation: Part Two, the turning point, exactly halfway.
Vocabulary page 188 "haruspication."
August 15, 2024
Robert Stone explores, I suppose, themes of masculinity in late-stage capitalism. Owen Browne is a veteran who is vaguely unsatisfied with his job as a salesman; Ron Strickland is a documentary filmmaker. Anne Browne, Owen's wife, also narrates the book although is a more reactive than active character.
The three have a reasonably good synergy, although Owen is feckless and Ron is repellent. When Owen takes a boat on a round-the-world journey as part of a competition ... a journey he is not quite qualified for .. the synergy is lost, the chapters become less interesting, and the involvement of Ron and Anne is simply an annoying cliche.
The three have a reasonably good synergy, although Owen is feckless and Ron is repellent. When Owen takes a boat on a round-the-world journey as part of a competition ... a journey he is not quite qualified for .. the synergy is lost, the chapters become less interesting, and the involvement of Ron and Anne is simply an annoying cliche.
April 13, 2024
Books about the sea and sailing always interest me. This was different. The first half told the background of the characters, and how the sailing part would occur. The second, a back and forth about the solo sailor and his wife etc. at home. There was less about the sailing journey, more about the sailor’s philosophical thinking and hallucinations. The book held my interest, the ending was abrupt.
April 2, 2024
Page-turning, with interesting and deep characterizations. Those don't always go together, but Stone does a good job of it. Happily, the denouement does not betray the lead-up for the sake of a happy ending. Though it is an excellent read adults of all ages, it is most resonant for readers beyond, say, age 40. It is in a class and of a mood with "Rabbit, Run".
January 4, 2026
Sailing chapters: great. Homer's Penelope by way of Updike infidelity chapters about a housewife stuck on shore who can seemingly only smoke cigarettes moodily and think of men and their sexual performance: not good! How the asshole men in these types of books always have women flocking to them remains a mystery to me.
July 16, 2018
Great tale. It gets esoteric and curious. Set the stage for life of pi
April 11, 2020
propulsive.
May 5, 2020
Poignant and compelling with well-drawn characters I cared enough about to be disappointed in when they went of the rails.
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