The Novel Index

Where to start with Robert Stone

American novelist, 1937–2015. Won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1975.

Best Robert Stone book to start with: Dog Soldiers (1974), on 2 of the 17 lists it could have made.

Dog Soldiers is the book to start with. It won the National Book Award in 1975. A journalist in Vietnam arranges to smuggle heroin back to the United States, and the deal goes wrong. It is a thriller and a portrait of a bad time, the most direct of his books and a good test of whether his bleak, fast style suits you.

A Flag for Sunrise was shortlisted for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1982. It is set in an invented Central American country and is larger and more political than Dog Soldiers, so read it second. Outerbridge Reach, shortlisted for the National Book Award in 1992, follows a man who joins a solo yacht race. Damascus Gate, shortlisted for the same prize in 1998, is set in Jerusalem.

Robert Stone
Photo: Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0

Robert Stone's books, ranked best first

Dog Soldiers comes first, on 2 of the 17 lists it could have made, followed by A Flag for Sunrise.

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Robert Stone's novels in order

The earliest on our lists is Dog Soldiers (1974), and the most recent is Damascus Gate (1998).

  1. 1974 Dog Soldiers
  2. 1981 A Flag for Sunrise
  3. 1992 Outerbridge Reach
  4. 1998 Damascus Gate

Novels on at least one of our 30 lists. Not a complete bibliography.

Also on one list

2 more of Robert Stone's novels are each on one of our lists.

Lists used on this page