On the jacket of Robert Stone's Hall of Mirrors, Wallace Stegner says that Stone "writes like a bird, like an angel"—which is not at all true; what is true is that Stone writes very well, that he creates a group of characters that are credible and some caricatures that are interesting, and that he places them in an action that is appropriate to their abilities and significant to our society. In doing all this, Stone has accomplished a great deal. The story Stone tells is comparatively simple: an alcoholic disc-jockey, an idealistic but not very intelligent social worker, and an illiterate young Southern girl are used as tools by a power hungry super-patriot to help stage a demonstration that gets out of hand. The story and its telling have something of the exaggeration of black humor, but Stone manages to get the best effects of such humor...