The Spring of His Discontent

In Robert Stone’s 1986 novel, Children of Light, the heroine, a Hollywood actress, encounters a Mexican avant-garde painter who has sold some paintings to an American department store. Agonizing over his sellout, the artist confesses that he’s never “spoken the truth in English,” and wonders whether such a thing is even possible. “Oh yes,” the starlet wittily replies, “but very Protestant.” The gibe takes aim at an earnest American...

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