Sunday, March 13, 2011

A Hall of Mirrors by Robert Stone

Stone’s first novel is harrowing portrait of America on the utter edge of despair and destruction. This is surreal American poetry of unease; which has been compared to Lowry (the chemical addled rants and prophetic visions), Conrad (the “Hollow Men” Reinhardt and Sailor Farley), Nathaniel West (the deranged riot echoes the ending of Day of the Locust), and Chandler. Set in a Jim Crow era New Orleans (recast as a hell out of Bosch or Dante), but its unholy vision of conservative talk radio, false prophets of the Christian right, and the willingness to provoke violence to sway public opinion; have not dated at all.

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