Stone Junction

June 12, 2023 7:23 PM

Charging like a runaway semitrailer on a downhill grade and spanning the era from Haight-Ashbury's Summer of Love into the darkness of 1980s Manhattan, Stone Junction is a wise and wildly imaginative novel about Daniel Pearse, an orphaned child who is taken under the wings of the AMO -- the Alliance of Magicians and Outlaws.

An assortment of sages sharpen Daniel's wide-eyed outlook until he has the concentration of a card shark Zeta master, via apprenticeships in meditation, safecracking, poker, and the art of walking through walls. Wizards are made, not born, and this unconventional education sets Daniel on the trail of mysteries ancient and modern.A strange, six-pound diamond sphere held by the U.S. government in a New Mexico vault, rumored to be the Philosopher's Stone or the Holy Grail, becomes the AMO's obsession. In time, Daniel perfects his powers and heads off to steal the magic stone, and what happens changes his life forever.

Stone Junction is a bravura act of storytelling, both a free-spirited adventure and a parable about the powers within all of us.

(Blurb from Goodreads)

posted by Literaryhero (8 comments total)

I recently re-read this on a whim, and I found it almost impossible to put down. There are a few spots that haven't aged particularly well, but in general, it is a wild ride.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:25 PM on June 12, 2023

Modest request: who's the author?
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:42 AM on June 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

The author is Jim Dodge.

I read this like 30 years ago due to an effusive blurb from Pynchon. I think I enjoyed it, but I honestly don't remember a thing about it.
posted by dfan at 6:57 AM on June 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I found it on Amazon, and one of the reviews warned not to read Pynchon's intro because it contains spoilers.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:01 AM on June 13, 2023

I read this like 30 years ago due to an effusive blurb from Pynchon. I think I enjoyed it, but I honestly don't remember a thing about it.

It was like 22-ish years ago for me, but otherwise same here. It's still on my shelf, so I should re-read it sometime. I recently recognized the cover when someone on a TV show was reading it, but I can't remember what the show was.
posted by heteronym at 6:39 PM on June 14, 2023

I found it on Amazon, and one of the reviews warned not to read Pynchon's intro because it contains spoilers.

I am pro-spoiler generally, but even if I wasn't, this isn't really the kind of book where you are reading along for the plot.
posted by Literaryhero at 11:22 PM on June 14, 2023

As a side note, I started reading another Jim Dodge novel "Not Fade Away" with the intent of posting it next, but about halfway through it becomes really, really, really racist in a totally non-excusable way (not that racism is ever excusable). I had to put the book down.

I am considering trying to re-read his first novel, Fup, but I'm honestly kind of put off by the whole thing now.
posted by Literaryhero at 11:25 PM on June 14, 2023

I read this like 30 years ago due to an effusive blurb from Pynchon. I think I enjoyed it, but I honestly don't remember a thing about it.

This is exactly my experience. Pynchon blurb, the rest a blur.
posted by chavenet at 1:55 PM on July 2, 2023