Death of the Black-Haired Girl
*Starred Review* Set on campus, Stone’s novel features Maud, smart, beautiful, and full of passion for her convictions and her married professor. Professor Brookman, in turn, has ill-advisedly returned her affections. Unsure if it’s love or obsession, Brookman is already aware that this affair will not end well. Maud, after passing antiabortion demonstrators outside a women’s clinic, rashly writes a diatribe against small-mindedness and hypocrisy for the Gazette, unleashing much fury among groups on campus and elsewhere. And when the tragic, sudden, and inevitable death of the black-haired girl does finally strike, it is shocking. Although Stone (Dog Soldiers, 1974; Damascus Gate, 1998) introduces a cast of menacing and motivated characters, he is interested less in whodunit than in questions of fate and of faith. “Old stuff comes back,” he writes. Poor judgment and reckless acts have consequences, not just for the lovers but also for those in their orbit, among them, Maud’s dad, a retired cop dying of emphysema; her roommate, a B-movie actress with a restraining order on her fanatical ex-husband; Brookman’s wife and daughter; and Maud’s student counselor, an ex-nun and former revolutionary. Stone’s world, full of ominous forebodings, is populated by characters familiar to readers of his novels: the disaffected, the politically naive, and the world weary—lost souls who have lost their faith and others with false faith.       High-Demand Backstory: The publication of any book by Stone is a literary event; this one is no exception. --Ben Segedin--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.