Bay of Souls

By Robert Stone
August 2004
Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 0330426605
249 pages, 4 ¼" x 7"
$16.95 Paper Original

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Michael Ahern is a loving father, vaguely discontented husband and professor at a mediocre rural college. It is not until he meets new faculty member Lara Purcell, however, that he begins to question his hitherto comfortable assumptions and quietly predictable family life. Michael finds himself inexorably drawn to her, his obsession fuelled by their mutual attraction and quickly spiraling into an affair.

When Lara, haunted by her dead brother and believing herself possessed by a voodoo spirit, flees to her native island of St. Trinity, Michael follows heedless of the political upheaval there. Together, he and Lara themselves ensnared by island intrigues, and prey to perilously compelling dreams. Bay of Souls all the trademarks of Stone's greatest fiction - the American embroiled in Third World corruption, the diplomats and covert operatives, the idealists and opportunists. He paints a terrifying yet magical picture of a place where experience is unreliable and politics superfluous.

"Vintage Stone, laconic and riveting. It's a pleasure to watch this writer at work as he individualizes his portraits of people gripped by beliefs and passions of unusual intensity." - The New York Times

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