Bear and His Daughter: Stories - Hardcover

Stone, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395636523 ISBN 13: 9780395636527

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997

Synopsis

A collection of short stories includes "Miserere," in which a widowed and childless librarian becomes an avid participant in the antiabortion movement and the title story, about the relationship between a father and his growing daughter.

About this title

Reviews

A vibrant first collection from the award-winning author of, most recently, Outerbridge Reach (1992) and other thoughtful and powerful novels. The landscapes of drug addiction and war and its aftermath are depicted with rueful wit and furious intensity in these seven strongly imagined tales, written between 1969 and the present. Even in ``Miserere,'' whose narrative premise (an embittered widow insists that aborted fetuses receive the church's blessing) strains credulity, Stone hooks us with sharp, convincing characterizations. His stories, like his novels, pulse with barely restrained tension: You feel his characters are about to explode. ``Aquarius Obscured,'' an abrasively funny early piece, subjects its strung- out heroine to the ``fascist'' fulminations of a talking dolphin. Two other stories reveal the violent transformative consequences of drug-running operations, combining Hemingway-like vigor with Kafkaesque despair. The title novella, which traces the downward progression of an alcoholic poet reunited with the grown daughter who blames her own drinking and emotional problems on their longtime troubled relationship, moves with remarkable and implacable swiftness to a devastating climax; it's a compact Greek tragedy set in the Nevada mountains. ``Helping'' and ``Absence of Mercy'' trace with harrowing precision the sufferings of men shaped and trapped by the centrality of violence in their earlier lives, as it comes back to haunt them. Stone writes two kinds of scenes better than any other American novelist: summary descriptions of the whole shape and thrust of his characters' lives, and disturbingly visceral accounts of confrontations between his protagonists and their various demons. There are many such scenes here. For dramatic immediacy and emotional power, Stone has few contemporary peers, and no superiors: altogether, an impressive debut collection that will further whet appetites eager for his next novel, expected later this year. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Stone's first collection of stories, and first book since Outerbridge Reach (1991), spans nearly 30 years, and each taut and merciless tale, including the never-before-published, mythically tragic title piece, embodies much of the violence and madness that have bedeviled us in the confused aftermath of the war in Vietnam. Stone's universe is menacing and chaotic: religion is the refuge of the weak; vows to abstain from alcohol and drugs are preludes to escalating disaster; and men and women suffer in the grip of painful revelations of their own miserable failings. But the stories are masterful, electric with a terrible beauty and crushing truths. In "Miserere," a woman who has lost her family becomes a radical antiabortionist. In "Absence of Mercy," a man abused as a child in a Catholic boarding school finds that good deeds are punished more swiftly than crime. Combat of one form or another is the fulcrum of every tale as people lose control of love and decency, perspective and hope. Watch for Stone's new novel later this year. Donna Seaman

From the author of Outerbridge Reach: stories written over 30 years.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0395636523
• ISBN 13: 9780395636527
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 222