BAY OF SOULS [Paperback]

Robert Stone (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: NY (1980)
• ASIN: B000N6OX22
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

More About the Author

ROBERT STONE is the author of seven novels: A Hall of Mirrors, Dog Soldiers (winner of the National Book Award), A Flag for Sunrise, Children of Light, Outerbridge Reach, Damascus Gate, and Bay of Souls. His story collection, Bear and His Daughter, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and his memoir, Prime Green, was published in 2006.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bad story, December 17, 2004

By 

lisatheratgirl "lisatheratgirl" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Bay of Souls: A Novel (Hardcover)

I find myself agreeing with some of the other reviewers. This book isn't poor writing style, but the story is so far-fetched, improbable and just plain unbelievable that this book cant be saved. There are two related stories, neither of which really works. First there is a group of professors deer hunting in the winter in a godforsaken part of minnesota (this is the characters' opinion, not to offend anyone). A few strange things happen, and the main character comes home to find his son has been lost in the snow. The son nearly dies, but miraculously pulls through. The main character goes on to meet a woman professor who has just come to teach at the college. She dresses exotically, comes from a ficitious Caribbean island, goes in for a little S&M, and he falls head over heels, despite his jealous wife and little son. After the woman tells him her brother has died of AIDS, has xtolen her soul and given it to a voodoo queen who died two hundred years ago, and how dangerous it is to walk around in a body without a soul (a recitation that would send most men running scared), he decides to pack up and go down to the island with her. Although it's hard to tell what is really going on, things get wilder and wilder, with Haitian voodoo ceremonies, Colombian drug gangs, Latin-American style juntas supported by the U.S. governement. At this point I felt the author was just letting his imagination run wild or he didnt know what he was talking about. If you've read this far, you'll have a hard time finishing, although I did. You''ll wish you hadnt. I cant believe people act like this.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Muddled Soul, June 24, 2003

By 

JAMES AGNEW "UBU ROI" (Ann Arbor, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bay of Souls: A Novel (Hardcover)

I think that Robert Stone has written some great books, but this is not one of them. Bay of Souls seems torn between an Dellilo style life in the USA novel, and the usual Stone third world Conradesque action/philosophy thriller. Sad to say, but the academic parts, the creeping ennuie, the sudden adultery, minutia of modern life, etc. seem much more real than the drug crazed revolutionary danger parts, which is too bad because there are a lot of people who do the Delillo/Carver thing and not a lot who can pull off the headlong rush of Robert Stone.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not up to par, April 19, 2003

By A Customer

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This review is from: Bay of Souls: A Novel (Hardcover)

This simply is not Stone's best work. While Michael Ahearn's motivations are believable--the marriage is comatose, the relationship with his son awkward--the plot is both farfetched and burdened by coincidence. He just happens to dive Great Lake wrecks in his spare time and, oh, by the way, his lover is going to need him to dive a plane wreck during their tryst in the Islands? Not likely, not logical, not well planned.