Whenever Robert Stone has discussed his work, he has emphasized his abiding interest in what he calls "my subject. America and Americans." His explanation of his intentions for his first novel A Hall of Minors (1967)—"I was looking for a vision of America, for a statement about the American condition"—is applicable to all of his work, and this often grim vision of American reality is the central feature of the short fiction which he has collected in Bear and His Daughter. While admitting that he is "sometimes bitterly critical," Stone maintains that he is "a patriot" and that "I love America." The dark cast of much of his work develops from what Stone sees as a gulf between a great national promise and the nature of life for many Americans. The elusiveness of what sometimes seems almost a national birthright has, Stone feels...