The American Scholar

Not Quite Forgotten

CHILD OF LIGHT: A Biography of Robert Stone

BY MADISON SMARTT BELL

Doubleday, 608 pp., $35

A PROFILE OF NOVELIST Robert Stone that appeared in magazine in 1997 offered this summary: “It has been Stone’s peculiar fate to have great success without great recognition.” Nearly 60, he had already won the National Book Award, for (1974), which was, in addition, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. (1981)—which was also a finalist for the Pulitzer and the PEN/Faulkner Award—and (1992) had been finalists for the National Book Award. More honors and bestsellers were yet to come before his death

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