Bear and His Daughter
Robert Stone gathers stories written across three decades, all populated by people pushed to some kind of brink: addicts, drifters, writers, and a father and daughter whose reunion ends in disaster. The centerpiece, Helping, follows a recovering alcoholic social worker whose hold on his own life starts to slip in a single tense afternoon. It is the story George Saunders points to as one built to endure. Stone writes about despair and faith with the same clear eye, never letting his characters off the hook but never treating them as less than human. The collection shows why he is regarded as one of America's great moral storytellers.
What you might want to know about Bear and His Daughter
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A collection of stories about damaged, searching characters on the edges of American life, written by a master of moral tension.
Saunders has named the story Helping, from this collection, among the American short stories he thinks will stand the test of time.
Bear and His Daughter was written by Robert Stone, published in 1997 by Mariner Books.
Bear and His Daughter is 240 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Bear and His Daughter takes most readers 4 to 5 hours to finish.
Bear and His Daughter is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
