SOURCE: Bloom, James D. “Cultural Capital and Contrarian Investing: Robert Stone, Thom Jones, and Others.” Contemporary Literature 36, no. 3 (fall 1995): 490-507.

In the following essay, Bloom discusses Stone's intertextual commentary on the uses and abuses of literary art in Outerbridge Reach, Children of Light, and A Flag for Sunrise. Bloom contends that Stone's fiction, like that of authors Thom Jones, Marilynne Robinson, and Don DeLillo, addresses the problematic legitimacy and interpretation of canonic writings and creative idols when appropriated by artists, critics, and filmmakers as a form of cultural capital.

Robert Stone's 1986 novel Children of Light takes place mostly on a movie set—a Mexican location where a screen adaptation of Kate Chopin's The Awakening is in long-delayed production. Stone's narrative focuses on Gordon Walker, the screenwriter who adapted Chopin's novel and then waited a decade for production until “The book was discovered by academics and declared a feminist...