Robert Stone, the award-winning novelist who spun out tales worldwide of seekers, frauds and other misbegotten American dreamers in such works as A Flag for Sunrise and Dog Soldiers, died Saturday at age 77.
Stone died at
his home in Key West, Florida, his literary agent, Neil Olson, told The
Associated Press. The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
A
lifelong adventurer who in his 20s befriended Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady
and what he called "all those crazies" of the counterculture, Stone had a
fateful affinity for outsiders, especially those who brought hard times
on themselves. Starting with the 1966 novel A Hall of Mirrors, Stone
set his stories everywhere from the American South to the Far East and
was a master of making art out of his character's follies, whether the
adulterous teacher in Death of the Black-Haired Girl, the fraudulent
seafarer in Outerbridge Reach, or the besieged journalist in Dog
Soldiers, winner of the National Book Award in 1975. A Flag for
Sunrise, published in 1981, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and
PEN/Faulkner award and had the unusual honor of being nominated twice
for a National Book Award, as a hardcover and paperback. In 1992, Outerbridge Reach was a National Book Award finalist.
HT: Doc Quatermass
1 comment:
So glad I had the opportunity to meet him in person at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto. Always a sad day when we lose another terrific writer.
Icewineanne
lakebotany@hotmail.ca
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