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Robert Stone Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Robert Stone
Photo: Greg Martin

Robert Stone

Robert Stone Biography

Robert Stone was the acclaimed author of nine novels, and two short story collections, plus several nonfiction works.

He won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1975 for his novel Dog Soldiers and was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and once for the PEN/Faulkner Awards. Time magazine included it in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1937 to a "family of Scottish Presbyterians and Irish Catholics who made their living as tugboat workers in New York harbor," he died in January 2015

Novels
A Hall of Mirrors (1967)
Dog Soldiers (1974)
A Flag for Sunrise (1981)
Children of Light (1986)
Outerbridge Reach (1992)
Damascus Gate (1998)
Bay of Souls (2003)
Death of the Black-Haired Girl (2013)
A Step Behind (2014)


Collections
Bear and His Daughter: Stories (1997)
Fun with Problems (2010)



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Interview

Robert Stone talks about the inspiration for Bay of Souls and how he became interested in voodoo.

Where did you get the idea for Bay Of Souls? What inspired you? How would you describe Bay Of Souls?
Matters of faith, possessing it, losing it, have always attracted me. Here I wanted to follow the condition of a character who, in an irony, loses the faith he has stubbornly maintained all his life and goes into a state of spiritual darkness. He is drawn into a passionate love affair in which he finds a physical and psychological gratification he has never known. He also finds himself in a life utterly different from the one he has lived. On one of the Windward islands, he also comes under the power of the afro-Caribbean syncretic religion known in different places as santeria, voudon, or candomble. Giving way to his feelings for Lara Purcell, he is forced to make his way through a spiritual maze, accepting as he resists this sophisticated and powerful religious structure of vaudon. He has always been drawn to danger and risk although it has been largely absent from his life. With Lara Purcell in St. Trinity, he finds it all. In Bay Of Souls Michael Ahearn undergoes a violent pilgrimage that is also a test of his ability to love and to accept life. He is overwhelmed by the pleasures, the confusions and terrors of ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Robert Stone at BookBrowse
Death of the Black-Haired Girl jacket Fun with Problems jacket Prime Green jacket Bay of Souls jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Robert Stone but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Michael Gruber

    Michael Gruber

    Michael Gruber was born and raised in New York City, and educated in its public schools. He went to Columbia, earning a BA in English literature. After college he did editorial work at various small magazines in New York,... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Bay of Souls

    Try:
    Tropic of Night
    by Michael Gruber

  • Barbara Hambly

    Barbara Hambly

    Barbara Hambly (b. 1951) is a New York Times bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction, as well as historical novels set in the nineteenth century. After receiving a master's degree in medieval history, she published ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Bay of Souls

    Try:
    Dead Water
    by Barbara Hambly

We recommend 5 similar authors

View all 5 Read-Alikes

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