SOURCE: Edmundson, Mark. “America at Sea.” New Republic 206, no. 16 (20 April 1992): 42-5.

In the following review, Edmundson contends that the reductive characters in Outerbridge Reach limit the depth and authenticity of the novel.

Near the beginning of Children of Light, Robert Stone's fourth novel, which appeared in 1986, Gordon Walker sets out south from Los Angeles along the coastal road heading for Mexico and a disaster that he, through no particular virtue, manages to survive. Walker slows down to stop in a seedy little American town along the way: “At right angles to the coast road, garnished with a rank of rat-infested royal palms, ran the lineup of tackle stores, taco stands, and murky cocktail lounges that was the beach's principal thoroughfare.”

The detail about the rats is pure Robert Stone. In the harsh vision of his first four novels, claims to nobility or high-mindedness (much less to royalty) are...