SOURCE: Danziger, Jeff. “Disappointing Tale of Hollywood from Critically Acclaimed Robert Stone.” Christian Science Monitor (17 March 1986): 26.

In the following review, Danziger criticizes Children of Light, asserting that the novel is filled with disturbing, greedy characters and a grim and depressing plot.

Strangers to Robert Stone's depressing but critically acclaimed writing will find this novel [Children of Light] tough going at first and uncomfortably fractious after that. This is a vicious and annoying form of realism that gives us a set of characters who get no compassion from each other or their author. On location for a movie being shot in Mexico, they tear at each other with sarcasm and brittle Hollywood badinage, an immature unconcern, a childish selfishness that in Mr. Stone's theory is a byproduct of American innocence.

The main character, LuAnne, an actress and definitely a woman under the influence, sees odd manifestations around her, which...