SOURCE: Finn, James. “The Moral Vision of Robert Stone: The Transcendent in the Muck of History.” Commonweal 120, no. 19 (5 November 1993): 9-14.

In the following essay, Finn provides an overview of Stone's novels and examines the strengths and weaknesses of his writing style, social and political concerns, and underlying religious sentiment.

Robert Stone is a highly ambitious author whose reach sometimes exceeds his grasp. (But what's a writer's heaven for?) He is an imposingly confident writer whose self-assessments, nevertheless, sometimes seem off the mark. However, on the basis of his most recent novel it is clear that he is still on a rising trajectory whose end is not yet in sight. Altogether, a most interesting case.

Stone's first novel, A Hall of Mirrors (1967), gave notice that here was a new and original voice, marked by a distinctive sensibility. (The William Faulkner Foundation award for the best first novel of the...