Bear and His Daughter: Stories

Robert Stone

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997 - Fiction - 222 pages

In "Miserere, " Mary Urquhart is a widowed librarian whose unspeakable secret concerning the death of her husband and children causes her to undertake a most unusual and grisly role in the anti-abortion crusade. In his classic and widely anthologized story" Helping" Stone examines with beautifully composed acuity a moment of climactic confrontation in the life of Elliot, a therapist beset by his own demons. Reminiscent of "Dog Soldiers" and "A Flag for Sunrise," "Under the Pitons" is a harrowing story about Blessington, a somewhat reluctant participant in a drug-running scheme, and the grim and unexpected consequences of his involvement. And finally, the title story, a novella published here for the first time, is a powerful, riveting account of the tangled lines that weave together the relationship of a father and his grown daughter.

What people are saying

BEAR AND HIS DAUGHTER: Stories

User Review  - Jane Doe - Kirkus

A vibrant first collection from the award-winning author of, most recently, Outerbridge Reach (1992) and other thoughtful and powerful novels. The landscapes of drug addiction and war and its ...

Bear and his daughter: stories

User Review  - Not Available - Book Verdict

From the author of Outerbridge Reach: stories written over 30 years.

About the author

Robert Stone was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 21, 1937. His parents never married and his father was not part of his life. His mother had schizophrenia and was frequently hospitalized. From the ages of 6 to 10, he lived in an orphanage run by the Marist brothers. In 1954, he dropped out of high school and joined the Navy, where he earned his high school equivalency diploma. In the 1960's, he briefly attended New York University, worked as a copy boy for the New York Daily News, and attended the Wallace Stegner writing workshop at Standford University. His first novel, A Hall of Mirrors, won a William Faulkner Foundation award for best first novel of 1967 and was adapted into a movie entitled WUSA starring Paul Newman. His other books include Children of Light, Outerbridge Reach, Damascus Gate, Bear and His Daughter, Fun with Problems, Bay of Souls, and Death of the Black-Haired Girl. He also wrote a memoir entitled Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties. He won numerous awards including the National Book Award in 1975 for Dog Soldier, which was adapted into a movie entitled Who'll Stop the Rain starring Nick Nolte and Tuesday Weld, and a PEN/Faulkner Award for A Flag for Sunrise. He died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on January 10, 2015 at the age of 77.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Bear and His Daughter: Stories; Mariner Books
• Author: Robert Stone
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: May 29, 2008
• ISBN: 0395636523, 9780395636527
• Length: 222 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Literary