Robert Stone

by Robert Stone, Madison Smartt Bell (Editor)

For the first time in one volume, three modern masterworks from the National Book Award-winning writer who explored the dark undercurrents of the American Century

Blurring the boundaries between literary fiction and political and military thrillers, Robert Stone was one of the most dynamic and critically acclaimed American writers of the last fifty years. Here, released in conjunction with Madison Smartt Bell's major new biography, is a deluxe edition gathering Stone's three finest novels, modern masterpieces about the dark underside of the American century. Stone's own experiences in Saigon inspired Dog Soldiers (1974), in which an ill-fated scheme to smuggle three kilos of heroin from South Vietnam to California comes to the attention of a corrupt drug enforcement official, setting in motion a lethal chase across a nightmarish landscape populated by poseurs, hustlers, psychopathic criminals, and failed gurus. Winner of the National Book Award, Dog Soldiers ranks with the work of Michael Herr and Tim O'Brien as a psychological reckoning with how Vietnam changed America. A Flag for Sunrise (1981) depicts of a leftist revolution in the fictious Central American country of Tecan and its impact on three North Justin Feeney, an idealistic nun; Frank Holliwell, an anthropologist who does favors for the CIA; and Pablo Tabor, an enraged Coast Guard deserter. Through their fates Stone explores the search for moral order in a terrifying universe beset by fear and evil. In Outerbridge Reach (1992) Owen Browne, a Navy veteran of Vietnam turned boat salesman, seeks to test his courage amid the materialism, corruption, and superficiality of 1980s America by entering a solo around-the-world yacht race. Alone in the South Atlantic, Browne discovers his capacity for deception and enlightenment in a sea tale worthy of Melville and Conrad.

Genres: Literature, Fiction

1216 pages, Hardcover

Published March 3, 2020

About the author

ROBERT 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.

Reviews

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone was overwhelming when read for the first time, and even now, when I have ‘closed’ this novel for the second time, I must say that it was impressive, after all, with 448 pages, it is not one of those tales you finish in an afternoon, if one keeps reading, then one must be captivated…however, I do not conclude now, like the first time, that this is a chef d’oeuvre, though it would not fall as low as it is on The Greatest Books of All Time site, at 2532, it is still in my Top 1,000 – if you want to see more of my reviews, here they are: https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...



9 out of 10

This is what I thought about A Flag for Sunrise when I first had the immense pleasure to read it https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... it was ‘monumental’ but not anymore
I keep wondering if those books that I have rated so highly twenty years ago, more or less, have not been so outstanding, it was just a flawed, exalted impression, or it is myself that have changed, and do not see the value anymore

Most likely it is a combination – perhaps close to the Aristotelian Golden Mean – of change of perspective, like with the Impressionists https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
And the viewer is a different now, something Marcel Proust has explained so well, he is my absolute favorite, along with Kinglsey Amis, with have become someone else, and this explains attitudes towards love and all else

The only heroine, pure, altruistic, munificent, almost perfect (nay, since she is fictional, she might as well be perfect, humans are not, but then she is a personage) figure here would be sister Justin, the real name being May
Holliwell, the anthropologist who had worked for the CIA in the past, in Vietnam, is a much more complicated figure, he may fall in love with May aka sister Justin, but he has doubts and then there is always Thomas Mann https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... to explain this issue

The narrative moves around and in an invented country, the Caribbean islands, and we have a very insightful look at the politics in those places, as they used to be some decades ago – not that they have changed completely
Calahan and Deedee, his wife, have a crew that includes Negus, and then they hire Pablo, one of the key characters, one readers empathize with, to some extent, although he starts of by shooting…his dogs, and that really is cruel

Campos is the clear villain here – another man kills children, only this latter is crazy – he works for the reactionary regime, the caudillo, and he kills opponents, even a few of the ones we meet in the plot, let me not get into details
The role the Americans play is nefarious, and it could help in reminding the audience that they have not been angels, I mean now they have a would-be czar, or caudillo, who in the words of the Japanese Prime Minister is ‘not a normal person’

Calahan, Deedee and their associates want to sell guns and sacrifice Pablo, the wife is interested in having sex with him, because the idea that he will be cold very soon adds to her kinks, but we have plenty of reversals, as suggested by Aristotle

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence
Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again, Browne was unable to sleep and passed the early morning hours sitting up beside his sleeping wife. He thought it might have been the wine. To the Source of the Oxus lay open on his lap but his thoughts, for some reason, stayed on the Cuban documentary. A car went slowly by outside, cruising. With it came the sound of a rap tape played at full volume as though one of its windows were open.

The documentary had been no different from a hundred other programs that had offended Browne 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.

The war would never be fought because the enemy had proved false. All his fierce alternatives were lies. Surely, Browne thought sleepily, this was a good thing. Yet something was lost. For his own part, he was tired of living for himself and those who were him by extension. It was impossible, he thought. Empty and impossible. He wanted more.

Ward had said, "I need some love in my life."

Ward, Browne thought, would make a good minister. A decorous man who knew the secrets of the heart. But what about me, Browne wondered. Which was the very question he had sought to elude. For a moment he felt as though he were standing at the edge of a great darkness with an ear cocked to the wind, attending silence. It was a place he dared not stay.

He remembered walking as a stranger in the ruined terminal. For a moment he became a stranger in his own house, in his own bed, beside his own woman -- a stranger but without a stranger's freedom. On the other side of darkness, he imagined freedom. It was a bright expanse, an effort, a victory. It was a good fight or the right war -- something that eased the burden of self and made breath possible. Without it, he felt as though he had been preparing all his life for something he would never live to see.

[Cyprien Saito · Rating 4 out of 5]

The existential Angust can be found also in American writers. When I read Faulkner for the first time, I confess, the primitiveness in his writing style gave me a flinch. But, in a different sense, I cannot behave like a disguised shrunken head before this kind of psychological writer.
How the dark side of the Cold War in America could be revealed in novelists form? Author does not utilize the expression like News From Nowhere, nor those of Malraux, John Ralston Saul and also does not formalize the theme by magic and psychic light of Balzac.
He seems to have been rather fond of writing in Flaubert's battle field,that is, his characters behave as if all of them were disdained shrunken heads.
The hard point is the reality of psychoanalysis: Nobody writes anything without promissed gain after writing.
I stopped reading at the sentence in Outerbridge Reach. "Early hospitalzation is necessary“.

[Ryan Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very solid writing throughout. I bought this volume for Dog Soldiers but enjoyed Outerbridge Reach the most. Stone didn’t publish a lot of novels, but the ones here are well polished. There really aren’t any heroes to be had, but plenty of compelling characters.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Dog Soldiers, the first novel in this volume. Literary noir, very 1970s. Read it mostly on the beach in Cozumel.