Bizarre Island Mishmash 

Robert Stone's latest novel -- only his seventh in 40 years -- began life as a short story titled "Dominion" in the December 27, 1999, issue of the New Yorker. It described a day in the life of a college English professor who goes deer hunting with two colleagues. What he experiences in the wilderness -- and what he experiences when he returns home to his wife and son in the midst of terrible trauma -- alters the course of his life in a way that is only obliquely described by the author. Scenes and images from this tale stayed with me -- a menacing encounter with a deranged hunter in the middle of the woods, the professor's panicked rush to the hospital to find his son in the grip of hypothermia. As always with Stone's writing, the physical details and human emotions were rendered in stark and convincing manner, while the overall mood remained dark and foreboding.

All in all, "Dominion" seemed as perfect a story as I had ever read. Imagine my surprise in encountering it once again, only this time as Chapter One of what can best be described as a fascinating, but weirdly imperfect novel.

A similar type of literary deja vu was created by Don DeLillo when his "Baseball vs. the Bomb" story "Pafko At the Wall" eventually morphed into the overture to his mammoth novel Underworld.

In terms of plot, Bay of Souls branches off into directions that couldn't be predicted from the original source -- indeed, what occurs throughout the rest of the novel seems only remotely connected to "Dominion" (or Chapter One, as the case may be).

A few weeks after the deer hunt, Michael Ahearn (the professor in question) becomes intimately acquainted with a new faculty member named Lara. In the rural, Midwestern college town where Ahearn lives, Lara seems completely out of place. She's from St. Trinity, a small Caribbean island in the midst of political upheaval; her confrontational, cynical manner and beautiful, exotic appearance give her more than a mere whiff of mystery and intrigue.

Anyone familiar with Robert Stone's books knows he doesn't write about happy folk -- there is literally a broken marriage in every one of his books. Given the uneasy truce that exists between Ahearn and his wife (made more tenuous by the near-death of their son), the affair that ignites between Ahearn and his new colleague seems almost inevitable.

But marital crisis and infidelity aren't the pivots upon which Bay of Souls ultimately swings. Something far more dangerous, and lethal, is about to happen.

When Lara is called back to her native island to resolve some murky family business, Ahearn determines to follow her. The tropical nightmare that ensues, although terrifically suspenseful in a few scenes, seems derivative of previous Stone novels. This won't present a problem to someone who hasn't read such powerful, and better, works as A Flag From Sunrise, Dog Soldiers or Damascus Gate, but to someone who has, much of what occurs in Bay of Souls will seem overly familiar -- and overly melodramatic.

Once he lands in St. Trinity, Ahearn encounters terror that comes at him in waves, and simply put, defies belief. In short order, he must contend with voodoo drums and the threat of evil spirits, Colombian cocaine lords and their ruthless minions, psychotic rebels and government police -- plus an extremely pissed-off wife back home who has just seen through his deceptive ways. It's a lot of territory to cover, especially after that solitary hunt in the woods in the comparatively sedate, Hemingwayesque "Dominion."

Bay of Souls isn't without its merits. One scene that takes place at the bottom of the bay (of souls, of course) is particularly compelling. Ahearn, who turns out, rather conveniently, to be an expert diver, is blackmailed into diving down to a small plane that has crashed and sunk. He's supposed to locate canisters of drugs, but his mind is naturally focused on whatever horrors the site may reveal.

"Of course the remains of the pilot were inside, and of course the fish were there in uncountable numbers to eat them. The remains were hugely swollen, stuffed into khaki cloth, and the head was so horrible that it frightened Michael into dropping his flashlight, leaving him traumatized in sudden darkness. He had to hurry after the tumbling illumination while its beam careened over the coral wall, lighting crevices where half-coiled morays darted, lighting pillars of sea snow, the tiny flakes ceaselessly falling. A barracuda, drawn by the light's filament, made a lightning charge."

Whoa. You can see the future movie unspooling before your very eyes -- an intriguing notion, since Stone's novels have never made successful flicks (Who'll Stop The Rain was a pale imitation of Dog Soldiers).

Even if Bay of Souls makes a great film, that doesn't mean it's great literature. When Ahearn's lover fell under the sway of a cackling witch doctor, I couldn't help thinking of the James Bond installment Live and Let Die in which the intrepid 007 battled the dark forces of voudon.

Stone remains a forceful and poetic writer, but this latest novel is a bizarre mishmash, like a "director's cut" of a film that never knows when to end. Stone should have left well enough alone with the tauter, more memorable "Dominion."

CL RecommendsCerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton. In the 11th entry in Hamilton's popular Anita Blake series, Anita -- a vampire executioner and necromancer in St. Louis -- has been in love with a werewolf (he dumped her) and she's still in love with the master vampire of the city, Jean-Claude. This time around, Anita and Jean-Claude try to control a tricky situation involving a cruel and scheming representative of the European Council of Vampires. Plus, Anita gets called in by the police to help investigate a series of gruesome murders. If you're new to this series be aware that there's lots of sex -- between everybody, human, vampires and were-animals. Best to start with the earlier books and work your way up to this stage.

Crumbtown by Joe Connelly. Blistering satire from the author of Bringing Out the Dead follows a parolee who returns to his crime-filled, gritty, blue-collar town to consult on a TV show based on his life and a bank robbery he didn't really commit. Great, widely drawn characters and biting dialogue make this something akin to Elmore Leonard but with extra emphasis on the interactions of politics and entertainment.

Game Time: A Baseball Companion by Roger Angell. A godsend to baseball fans, this collection of some of the best essays and reporting by The New Yorker's resident baseball scribe rarely fails to delight. Angell loves baseball; what makes his passion all the more enjoyable is the absence of sentimentality. Unlike some more flowery baseball writers, he doesn't believe baseball mirrors life or represents a higher ideal. For him, it's just a marvelous game fraught with the frailties, faults and variations of any human endeavor.

The King In The Tree: Three Novellas by Steven Millhauser. A master of intelligent fantasy and linguistic acrobatics, Millhauser delivers in this small collection about the darker side of romance and desire. He retells the Tristan and Isolde tragedy in a novella that's a genuine masterwork; portrays a bored-out-of-his-skull Don Juan searching for real love and a wife; and delves into the psyche of a widow in the astonishing "Revenge," which takes place during a showing of a house for sale.

-- John Grooms, Ken Harmon, Erik Spanberg, Ann Wicker