No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Elegant and Poised, 14 Aug 2006
This novel captures the interace between two couples as they grow and mature both together and apart. The perspective of the elderly narrator brings a careful sensitivity and honesty to the relationships and the execution of the final set pieces is pitched just right. If you enjoyed any of the John Updike Rabbit books, or have enjoyed William Wharton's Tidings or Dad then you will love this.

A Gift To Be Savoured.......So Rich In Content, 08 Nov 2003
Crossing to safety is a novel which I took my time with, and savoured every written word. This was a blessing for it was my first experience with this author, and now having the majority of his books on my wish list, I'm going to have a ball.

We read about Larry and Sally Morgan and Charity and Sid Lang; two couples who meet in Madison Wisconsin, where their husbands are professors at the same university. The two couples become fast friends like love at first sight and soon they are so together and tight, sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; whatever. The Langs who are wealthy are unstiningly generous with their possessions. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy with the Morgans; no country too far that they cannot visit together and enjoy it's culture; no meal too costly or exotic that they cannot share and the beat goes on.

THE LANGS AND THE MORGANS leave no holds barred. They openly display their affection for each other, refusing to hide the fact that they enjoy their friendship which is based on love and trust. Their frienship endures and suffers all things, be they good, bad or indifferent, also creating bonds within their own families. Sid cannot live without Charity who is a perfectionist and a very dominant character, and Larry who holds a special bond with his wife Sally even more so, after a severe turn of events.

The novel starts with Larry as the narrator of the story. The couples are now in their sixties and the Morgans have been summoned from their New Mexico home to the Langs Vermont home retreat. A location where memories are still fresh and alive of past summers days and nights, and where presently there are experiencing some crucial developments. Developments important to them all and their children.

Larry takes us into the story from the beginning when they first meet in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as it is fitting gift for any occasion and will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Well written and highly recommended!!!

A must read, 20 Aug 1999
I discovered Wallace Stegner through my sister in San Francisco. I first read Crossing To Safety ten years ago and have reread it again and again. This story of friendship touched me greatly and I have shared it with many friends. I also recommend The Spectator Bird and A Shooting Star.

Beautiful, serious and thought provoking, 14 Aug 1999
A provocative story about the bond of friendship. Stegner's characters are vital, fully realized, complex, and thouroughly engaging. Though the story starts in simpler times, Depression era, the issues here (love, loyalty, staying true to one's self) remain relevant. The writing is poetic, even elegiac. I haven't been moved so deeply by a writer since my first introduction to Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've just finished Angle of Repose and I'm just starting The Spectator Bird. At this rate, I'll be through the Stegner catalog before Fall. I just can't get enough of this beautiful storyteller.

No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Elegant and Poised, 14 Aug 2006
This novel captures the interace between two couples as they grow and mature both together and apart. The perspective of the elderly narrator brings a careful sensitivity and honesty to the relationships and the execution of the final set pieces is pitched just right. If you enjoyed any of the John Updike Rabbit books, or have enjoyed William Wharton's Tidings or Dad then you will love this.

A Gift To Be Savoured.......So Rich In Content, 08 Nov 2003
Crossing to safety is a novel which I took my time with, and savoured every written word. This was a blessing for it was my first experience with this author, and now having the majority of his books on my wish list, I'm going to have a ball.

We read about Larry and Sally Morgan and Charity and Sid Lang; two couples who meet in Madison Wisconsin, where their husbands are professors at the same university. The two couples become fast friends like love at first sight and soon they are so together and tight, sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; whatever. The Langs who are wealthy are unstiningly generous with their possessions. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy with the Morgans; no country too far that they cannot visit together and enjoy it's culture; no meal too costly or exotic that they cannot share and the beat goes on.

THE LANGS AND THE MORGANS leave no holds barred. They openly display their affection for each other, refusing to hide the fact that they enjoy their friendship which is based on love and trust. Their frienship endures and suffers all things, be they good, bad or indifferent, also creating bonds within their own families. Sid cannot live without Charity who is a perfectionist and a very dominant character, and Larry who holds a special bond with his wife Sally even more so, after a severe turn of events.

The novel starts with Larry as the narrator of the story. The couples are now in their sixties and the Morgans have been summoned from their New Mexico home to the Langs Vermont home retreat. A location where memories are still fresh and alive of past summers days and nights, and where presently there are experiencing some crucial developments. Developments important to them all and their children.

Larry takes us into the story from the beginning when they first meet in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as it is fitting gift for any occasion and will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Well written and highly recommended!!!

A must read, 20 Aug 1999
I discovered Wallace Stegner through my sister in San Francisco. I first read Crossing To Safety ten years ago and have reread it again and again. This story of friendship touched me greatly and I have shared it with many friends. I also recommend The Spectator Bird and A Shooting Star.

Beautiful, serious and thought provoking, 14 Aug 1999
A provocative story about the bond of friendship. Stegner's characters are vital, fully realized, complex, and thouroughly engaging. Though the story starts in simpler times, Depression era, the issues here (love, loyalty, staying true to one's self) remain relevant. The writing is poetic, even elegiac. I haven't been moved so deeply by a writer since my first introduction to Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've just finished Angle of Repose and I'm just starting The Spectator Bird. At this rate, I'll be through the Stegner catalog before Fall. I just can't get enough of this beautiful storyteller.

Potent Language of Landscape, 24 Apr 2008
Stegner weaves together two basic narrative lines: that of a 58-year-old man with a degenerative bone disease and the narrative line of his grandmother who grew up in the artistically stimulating east US, but marries a man who takes her west and therefore removes her from the circles of art, literature and politics in the East to take her West to the wilder country of mines and surveying in which her husband is embroiled. Stegner's understanding of what constitutes the point at which families reach an 'angle of repose' is exemplary. It is a beautifully written book, the imagery and landscapes carved out of a land demanding potent language and given these by Stegner.

This book is still vivid, years after reading it., 27 Aug 1999
Angle of Repose was my first Stegner book. Chosen by my bookclub, half the members loved it, the other half found it frustrating, but we all agreed it would have made a great movie with Gary Cooper and ____? (choices for the female lead ranged from a young Barbara Stanwyck to Maureen O'Hara)...funny, we couldn't imagine it made with anyone in the current star circuit, it was definately an Old West story. Film version aside, Angle of Repose has held a place in my heart as a good read: images of Susan's art,her journals, the struggle up the rugged mountain road, the journeys to impossible places (not like travelling in this day and age), their house. I loved it. The only thing that my bookclub agreed on was that the ending of Angle of Repose kind of wimped out. It made more sense when we heard a recording of an interview shortly before his death when the interviewer mentioned that the ending was somewhat abrupt, and Stegner commented that he was in a hurry to get the book to his publisher, before he (Stegner)went on his way to Europe, so he kind of hurried the ending. What?! That aside, Wallace Stegner had a way of getting inside relationships, showing the love and/or the antagonism, like the couples in Crossing to Safety and the writer and the guy camping on his property in All the Little Live Things. Just a guess, but from the three Stegner books I've read, I would bet their author was a pretty feisty guy. There is a seduction to the antagonism, I wouldn't want it in my life, but I enjoy peeking at it in the lives of his characters.

Fantastic, meditative novel, 25 Aug 1999
As a child of the rural american west, including some of the places in this book, I was drawn to how stegner touches on our strange and sometimes masochistic desire to follow an american dream in this vast and sometimes empty land. The novel has a quiet, meditative quality that gets into your head, if you let it, and for me set off a long period of self-contemplation. The many subtle facets of this tale of wandering and identity make it one to read more than once, at different stages in life.

An excellently written book that touches the heart of every, 20 Aug 1999
Stegner is a master at bringing the essence of the important qualities of the well-lived life to the forefront. I am an avid non-fiction reader, but found myself reading all of Stegner's works. His characters have a realistic quality. Most often they are noble, but also very real.

Good story, but something's missing, 12 Aug 1999
The most interesting part of the book for me was Lyman Ward. I did not feel pity for him, but found his thoughts on "contemporary" 1970 society vs. his own and his grandmother's time and morals extremely telling of what the (late '60s) time was like for people like Lyman and Stegner (who was 61 at the time of publication). But I had some trouble really caring about Susan and Oliver, or little Ollie even. But the use of Lyman as narrator and participant was well done. It does not fit my image of a Pulitzer winner, with the likes of "Old Man and the Sea" and "The Caine Mutiny." "Angle of Repose" is a good, but not great book.

No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Elegant and Poised, 14 Aug 2006
This novel captures the interace between two couples as they grow and mature both together and apart. The perspective of the elderly narrator brings a careful sensitivity and honesty to the relationships and the execution of the final set pieces is pitched just right. If you enjoyed any of the John Updike Rabbit books, or have enjoyed William Wharton's Tidings or Dad then you will love this.

A Gift To Be Savoured.......So Rich In Content, 08 Nov 2003
Crossing to safety is a novel which I took my time with, and savoured every written word. This was a blessing for it was my first experience with this author, and now having the majority of his books on my wish list, I'm going to have a ball.

We read about Larry and Sally Morgan and Charity and Sid Lang; two couples who meet in Madison Wisconsin, where their husbands are professors at the same university. The two couples become fast friends like love at first sight and soon they are so together and tight, sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; whatever. The Langs who are wealthy are unstiningly generous with their possessions. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy with the Morgans; no country too far that they cannot visit together and enjoy it's culture; no meal too costly or exotic that they cannot share and the beat goes on.

THE LANGS AND THE MORGANS leave no holds barred. They openly display their affection for each other, refusing to hide the fact that they enjoy their friendship which is based on love and trust. Their frienship endures and suffers all things, be they good, bad or indifferent, also creating bonds within their own families. Sid cannot live without Charity who is a perfectionist and a very dominant character, and Larry who holds a special bond with his wife Sally even more so, after a severe turn of events.

The novel starts with Larry as the narrator of the story. The couples are now in their sixties and the Morgans have been summoned from their New Mexico home to the Langs Vermont home retreat. A location where memories are still fresh and alive of past summers days and nights, and where presently there are experiencing some crucial developments. Developments important to them all and their children.

Larry takes us into the story from the beginning when they first meet in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as it is fitting gift for any occasion and will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Well written and highly recommended!!!

A must read, 20 Aug 1999
I discovered Wallace Stegner through my sister in San Francisco. I first read Crossing To Safety ten years ago and have reread it again and again. This story of friendship touched me greatly and I have shared it with many friends. I also recommend The Spectator Bird and A Shooting Star.

Beautiful, serious and thought provoking, 14 Aug 1999
A provocative story about the bond of friendship. Stegner's characters are vital, fully realized, complex, and thouroughly engaging. Though the story starts in simpler times, Depression era, the issues here (love, loyalty, staying true to one's self) remain relevant. The writing is poetic, even elegiac. I haven't been moved so deeply by a writer since my first introduction to Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've just finished Angle of Repose and I'm just starting The Spectator Bird. At this rate, I'll be through the Stegner catalog before Fall. I just can't get enough of this beautiful storyteller.

Potent Language of Landscape, 24 Apr 2008
Stegner weaves together two basic narrative lines: that of a 58-year-old man with a degenerative bone disease and the narrative line of his grandmother who grew up in the artistically stimulating east US, but marries a man who takes her west and therefore removes her from the circles of art, literature and politics in the East to take her West to the wilder country of mines and surveying in which her husband is embroiled. Stegner's understanding of what constitutes the point at which families reach an 'angle of repose' is exemplary. It is a beautifully written book, the imagery and landscapes carved out of a land demanding potent language and given these by Stegner.

This book is still vivid, years after reading it., 27 Aug 1999
Angle of Repose was my first Stegner book. Chosen by my bookclub, half the members loved it, the other half found it frustrating, but we all agreed it would have made a great movie with Gary Cooper and ____? (choices for the female lead ranged from a young Barbara Stanwyck to Maureen O'Hara)...funny, we couldn't imagine it made with anyone in the current star circuit, it was definately an Old West story. Film version aside, Angle of Repose has held a place in my heart as a good read: images of Susan's art,her journals, the struggle up the rugged mountain road, the journeys to impossible places (not like travelling in this day and age), their house. I loved it. The only thing that my bookclub agreed on was that the ending of Angle of Repose kind of wimped out. It made more sense when we heard a recording of an interview shortly before his death when the interviewer mentioned that the ending was somewhat abrupt, and Stegner commented that he was in a hurry to get the book to his publisher, before he (Stegner)went on his way to Europe, so he kind of hurried the ending. What?! That aside, Wallace Stegner had a way of getting inside relationships, showing the love and/or the antagonism, like the couples in Crossing to Safety and the writer and the guy camping on his property in All the Little Live Things. Just a guess, but from the three Stegner books I've read, I would bet their author was a pretty feisty guy. There is a seduction to the antagonism, I wouldn't want it in my life, but I enjoy peeking at it in the lives of his characters.

Fantastic, meditative novel, 25 Aug 1999
As a child of the rural american west, including some of the places in this book, I was drawn to how stegner touches on our strange and sometimes masochistic desire to follow an american dream in this vast and sometimes empty land. The novel has a quiet, meditative quality that gets into your head, if you let it, and for me set off a long period of self-contemplation. The many subtle facets of this tale of wandering and identity make it one to read more than once, at different stages in life.

An excellently written book that touches the heart of every, 20 Aug 1999
Stegner is a master at bringing the essence of the important qualities of the well-lived life to the forefront. I am an avid non-fiction reader, but found myself reading all of Stegner's works. His characters have a realistic quality. Most often they are noble, but also very real.

Good story, but something's missing, 12 Aug 1999
The most interesting part of the book for me was Lyman Ward. I did not feel pity for him, but found his thoughts on "contemporary" 1970 society vs. his own and his grandmother's time and morals extremely telling of what the (late '60s) time was like for people like Lyman and Stegner (who was 61 at the time of publication). But I had some trouble really caring about Susan and Oliver, or little Ollie even. But the use of Lyman as narrator and participant was well done. It does not fit my image of a Pulitzer winner, with the likes of "Old Man and the Sea" and "The Caine Mutiny." "Angle of Repose" is a good, but not great book.

Harrowing, controversial, engaging and deeply moving, 09 Jan 1997
Wallace Stegner's novel attempts to strip away the layers of mythology created around songwriter, artist and organiser Joe Hill. Taciturn Swedish sailor, fervent Wobbly, possible murderer, victim of conspiracy and, ultimately, willing martyr - all these aspects of the legendary Trade Unionist are explored in an effort to get to grips with the "real" Joe Hill. Stegner has tried to penetrate the conventional IWW mythology around Hill, refusing to accept the simplistic interpretation of an innocent man fitted up by the law. Instead, the Joe Hill he writes of is human, multidimensional - possibly guilty but a flawed hero nonetheless. Stegner explores the creation of a martyr andthe creation of a myth. Reading the story of Hill adds a poignancy and human dimension to the formulaic elegies of folksong and syndicalist tradition.

No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Elegant and Poised, 14 Aug 2006
This novel captures the interace between two couples as they grow and mature both together and apart. The perspective of the elderly narrator brings a careful sensitivity and honesty to the relationships and the execution of the final set pieces is pitched just right. If you enjoyed any of the John Updike Rabbit books, or have enjoyed William Wharton's Tidings or Dad then you will love this.

A Gift To Be Savoured.......So Rich In Content, 08 Nov 2003
Crossing to safety is a novel which I took my time with, and savoured every written word. This was a blessing for it was my first experience with this author, and now having the majority of his books on my wish list, I'm going to have a ball.

We read about Larry and Sally Morgan and Charity and Sid Lang; two couples who meet in Madison Wisconsin, where their husbands are professors at the same university. The two couples become fast friends like love at first sight and soon they are so together and tight, sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; whatever. The Langs who are wealthy are unstiningly generous with their possessions. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy with the Morgans; no country too far that they cannot visit together and enjoy it's culture; no meal too costly or exotic that they cannot share and the beat goes on.

THE LANGS AND THE MORGANS leave no holds barred. They openly display their affection for each other, refusing to hide the fact that they enjoy their friendship which is based on love and trust. Their frienship endures and suffers all things, be they good, bad or indifferent, also creating bonds within their own families. Sid cannot live without Charity who is a perfectionist and a very dominant character, and Larry who holds a special bond with his wife Sally even more so, after a severe turn of events.

The novel starts with Larry as the narrator of the story. The couples are now in their sixties and the Morgans have been summoned from their New Mexico home to the Langs Vermont home retreat. A location where memories are still fresh and alive of past summers days and nights, and where presently there are experiencing some crucial developments. Developments important to them all and their children.

Larry takes us into the story from the beginning when they first meet in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as it is fitting gift for any occasion and will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Well written and highly recommended!!!

A must read, 20 Aug 1999
I discovered Wallace Stegner through my sister in San Francisco. I first read Crossing To Safety ten years ago and have reread it again and again. This story of friendship touched me greatly and I have shared it with many friends. I also recommend The Spectator Bird and A Shooting Star.

Beautiful, serious and thought provoking, 14 Aug 1999
A provocative story about the bond of friendship. Stegner's characters are vital, fully realized, complex, and thouroughly engaging. Though the story starts in simpler times, Depression era, the issues here (love, loyalty, staying true to one's self) remain relevant. The writing is poetic, even elegiac. I haven't been moved so deeply by a writer since my first introduction to Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've just finished Angle of Repose and I'm just starting The Spectator Bird. At this rate, I'll be through the Stegner catalog before Fall. I just can't get enough of this beautiful storyteller.

Potent Language of Landscape, 24 Apr 2008
Stegner weaves together two basic narrative lines: that of a 58-year-old man with a degenerative bone disease and the narrative line of his grandmother who grew up in the artistically stimulating east US, but marries a man who takes her west and therefore removes her from the circles of art, literature and politics in the East to take her West to the wilder country of mines and surveying in which her husband is embroiled. Stegner's understanding of what constitutes the point at which families reach an 'angle of repose' is exemplary. It is a beautifully written book, the imagery and landscapes carved out of a land demanding potent language and given these by Stegner.

This book is still vivid, years after reading it., 27 Aug 1999
Angle of Repose was my first Stegner book. Chosen by my bookclub, half the members loved it, the other half found it frustrating, but we all agreed it would have made a great movie with Gary Cooper and ____? (choices for the female lead ranged from a young Barbara Stanwyck to Maureen O'Hara)...funny, we couldn't imagine it made with anyone in the current star circuit, it was definately an Old West story. Film version aside, Angle of Repose has held a place in my heart as a good read: images of Susan's art,her journals, the struggle up the rugged mountain road, the journeys to impossible places (not like travelling in this day and age), their house. I loved it. The only thing that my bookclub agreed on was that the ending of Angle of Repose kind of wimped out. It made more sense when we heard a recording of an interview shortly before his death when the interviewer mentioned that the ending was somewhat abrupt, and Stegner commented that he was in a hurry to get the book to his publisher, before he (Stegner)went on his way to Europe, so he kind of hurried the ending. What?! That aside, Wallace Stegner had a way of getting inside relationships, showing the love and/or the antagonism, like the couples in Crossing to Safety and the writer and the guy camping on his property in All the Little Live Things. Just a guess, but from the three Stegner books I've read, I would bet their author was a pretty feisty guy. There is a seduction to the antagonism, I wouldn't want it in my life, but I enjoy peeking at it in the lives of his characters.

Fantastic, meditative novel, 25 Aug 1999
As a child of the rural american west, including some of the places in this book, I was drawn to how stegner touches on our strange and sometimes masochistic desire to follow an american dream in this vast and sometimes empty land. The novel has a quiet, meditative quality that gets into your head, if you let it, and for me set off a long period of self-contemplation. The many subtle facets of this tale of wandering and identity make it one to read more than once, at different stages in life.

An excellently written book that touches the heart of every, 20 Aug 1999
Stegner is a master at bringing the essence of the important qualities of the well-lived life to the forefront. I am an avid non-fiction reader, but found myself reading all of Stegner's works. His characters have a realistic quality. Most often they are noble, but also very real.

Good story, but something's missing, 12 Aug 1999
The most interesting part of the book for me was Lyman Ward. I did not feel pity for him, but found his thoughts on "contemporary" 1970 society vs. his own and his grandmother's time and morals extremely telling of what the (late '60s) time was like for people like Lyman and Stegner (who was 61 at the time of publication). But I had some trouble really caring about Susan and Oliver, or little Ollie even. But the use of Lyman as narrator and participant was well done. It does not fit my image of a Pulitzer winner, with the likes of "Old Man and the Sea" and "The Caine Mutiny." "Angle of Repose" is a good, but not great book.

Harrowing, controversial, engaging and deeply moving, 09 Jan 1997
Wallace Stegner's novel attempts to strip away the layers of mythology created around songwriter, artist and organiser Joe Hill. Taciturn Swedish sailor, fervent Wobbly, possible murderer, victim of conspiracy and, ultimately, willing martyr - all these aspects of the legendary Trade Unionist are explored in an effort to get to grips with the "real" Joe Hill. Stegner has tried to penetrate the conventional IWW mythology around Hill, refusing to accept the simplistic interpretation of an innocent man fitted up by the law. Instead, the Joe Hill he writes of is human, multidimensional - possibly guilty but a flawed hero nonetheless. Stegner explores the creation of a martyr andthe creation of a myth. Reading the story of Hill adds a poignancy and human dimension to the formulaic elegies of folksong and syndicalist tradition.

What a talent Stegner was, 31 Jul 1999
I took a chance on this novel, having read Angle and Crossing. I have not been disappointed. This man had to be born to write, it flows and the pages turn and time is well spent. I am surprised there is not more on this book here. Stegner is a master at dialogue, fleshing out characters who become so real, creating scenes and places that become just as real. The novel could have taken a touch of editing down and it's plot is not fast and furious as some readers need. For me he is about my favorite writer, it's a joy reading this. From here I'm moving on to 3 other Stegner books. Stunningly great writing.

My Second Favorite Book, 04 Jul 1998
After Zora Neale Hurston's,Their Eyes Were Watching God, this book is my next favorite. Wallace Stegner is a genius, a truly literary giant, equal to the likes of Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Balzac, and so on. The characters in this book are entirely real, in that they are great and not so great. But perhaps the best thing about the book is the beautiful writing. Just taking almost any sentence alone is a lesson in how to write. So original, so eloquent and so beautiful, it almost doesn't matter what the book is about. However, the book is also substantively great...about life and what it means to live it fully and genuinely. A great book.

No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Elegant and Poised, 14 Aug 2006
This novel captures the interace between two couples as they grow and mature both together and apart. The perspective of the elderly narrator brings a careful sensitivity and honesty to the relationships and the execution of the final set pieces is pitched just right. If you enjoyed any of the John Updike Rabbit books, or have enjoyed William Wharton's Tidings or Dad then you will love this.

A Gift To Be Savoured.......So Rich In Content, 08 Nov 2003
Crossing to safety is a novel which I took my time with, and savoured every written word. This was a blessing for it was my first experience with this author, and now having the majority of his books on my wish list, I'm going to have a ball.

We read about Larry and Sally Morgan and Charity and Sid Lang; two couples who meet in Madison Wisconsin, where their husbands are professors at the same university. The two couples become fast friends like love at first sight and soon they are so together and tight, sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; whatever. The Langs who are wealthy are unstiningly generous with their possessions. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy with the Morgans; no country too far that they cannot visit together and enjoy it's culture; no meal too costly or exotic that they cannot share and the beat goes on.

THE LANGS AND THE MORGANS leave no holds barred. They openly display their affection for each other, refusing to hide the fact that they enjoy their friendship which is based on love and trust. Their frienship endures and suffers all things, be they good, bad or indifferent, also creating bonds within their own families. Sid cannot live without Charity who is a perfectionist and a very dominant character, and Larry who holds a special bond with his wife Sally even more so, after a severe turn of events.

The novel starts with Larry as the narrator of the story. The couples are now in their sixties and the Morgans have been summoned from their New Mexico home to the Langs Vermont home retreat. A location where memories are still fresh and alive of past summers days and nights, and where presently there are experiencing some crucial developments. Developments important to them all and their children.

Larry takes us into the story from the beginning when they first meet in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as it is fitting gift for any occasion and will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Well written and highly recommended!!!

A must read, 20 Aug 1999
I discovered Wallace Stegner through my sister in San Francisco. I first read Crossing To Safety ten years ago and have reread it again and again. This story of friendship touched me greatly and I have shared it with many friends. I also recommend The Spectator Bird and A Shooting Star.

Beautiful, serious and thought provoking, 14 Aug 1999
A provocative story about the bond of friendship. Stegner's characters are vital, fully realized, complex, and thouroughly engaging. Though the story starts in simpler times, Depression era, the issues here (love, loyalty, staying true to one's self) remain relevant. The writing is poetic, even elegiac. I haven't been moved so deeply by a writer since my first introduction to Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've just finished Angle of Repose and I'm just starting The Spectator Bird. At this rate, I'll be through the Stegner catalog before Fall. I just can't get enough of this beautiful storyteller.

Potent Language of Landscape, 24 Apr 2008
Stegner weaves together two basic narrative lines: that of a 58-year-old man with a degenerative bone disease and the narrative line of his grandmother who grew up in the artistically stimulating east US, but marries a man who takes her west and therefore removes her from the circles of art, literature and politics in the East to take her West to the wilder country of mines and surveying in which her husband is embroiled. Stegner's understanding of what constitutes the point at which families reach an 'angle of repose' is exemplary. It is a beautifully written book, the imagery and landscapes carved out of a land demanding potent language and given these by Stegner.

This book is still vivid, years after reading it., 27 Aug 1999
Angle of Repose was my first Stegner book. Chosen by my bookclub, half the members loved it, the other half found it frustrating, but we all agreed it would have made a great movie with Gary Cooper and ____? (choices for the female lead ranged from a young Barbara Stanwyck to Maureen O'Hara)...funny, we couldn't imagine it made with anyone in the current star circuit, it was definately an Old West story. Film version aside, Angle of Repose has held a place in my heart as a good read: images of Susan's art,her journals, the struggle up the rugged mountain road, the journeys to impossible places (not like travelling in this day and age), their house. I loved it. The only thing that my bookclub agreed on was that the ending of Angle of Repose kind of wimped out. It made more sense when we heard a recording of an interview shortly before his death when the interviewer mentioned that the ending was somewhat abrupt, and Stegner commented that he was in a hurry to get the book to his publisher, before he (Stegner)went on his way to Europe, so he kind of hurried the ending. What?! That aside, Wallace Stegner had a way of getting inside relationships, showing the love and/or the antagonism, like the couples in Crossing to Safety and the writer and the guy camping on his property in All the Little Live Things. Just a guess, but from the three Stegner books I've read, I would bet their author was a pretty feisty guy. There is a seduction to the antagonism, I wouldn't want it in my life, but I enjoy peeking at it in the lives of his characters.

Fantastic, meditative novel, 25 Aug 1999
As a child of the rural american west, including some of the places in this book, I was drawn to how stegner touches on our strange and sometimes masochistic desire to follow an american dream in this vast and sometimes empty land. The novel has a quiet, meditative quality that gets into your head, if you let it, and for me set off a long period of self-contemplation. The many subtle facets of this tale of wandering and identity make it one to read more than once, at different stages in life.

An excellently written book that touches the heart of every, 20 Aug 1999
Stegner is a master at bringing the essence of the important qualities of the well-lived life to the forefront. I am an avid non-fiction reader, but found myself reading all of Stegner's works. His characters have a realistic quality. Most often they are noble, but also very real.

Good story, but something's missing, 12 Aug 1999
The most interesting part of the book for me was Lyman Ward. I did not feel pity for him, but found his thoughts on "contemporary" 1970 society vs. his own and his grandmother's time and morals extremely telling of what the (late '60s) time was like for people like Lyman and Stegner (who was 61 at the time of publication). But I had some trouble really caring about Susan and Oliver, or little Ollie even. But the use of Lyman as narrator and participant was well done. It does not fit my image of a Pulitzer winner, with the likes of "Old Man and the Sea" and "The Caine Mutiny." "Angle of Repose" is a good, but not great book.

Harrowing, controversial, engaging and deeply moving, 09 Jan 1997
Wallace Stegner's novel attempts to strip away the layers of mythology created around songwriter, artist and organiser Joe Hill. Taciturn Swedish sailor, fervent Wobbly, possible murderer, victim of conspiracy and, ultimately, willing martyr - all these aspects of the legendary Trade Unionist are explored in an effort to get to grips with the "real" Joe Hill. Stegner has tried to penetrate the conventional IWW mythology around Hill, refusing to accept the simplistic interpretation of an innocent man fitted up by the law. Instead, the Joe Hill he writes of is human, multidimensional - possibly guilty but a flawed hero nonetheless. Stegner explores the creation of a martyr andthe creation of a myth. Reading the story of Hill adds a poignancy and human dimension to the formulaic elegies of folksong and syndicalist tradition.

What a talent Stegner was, 31 Jul 1999
I took a chance on this novel, having read Angle and Crossing. I have not been disappointed. This man had to be born to write, it flows and the pages turn and time is well spent. I am surprised there is not more on this book here. Stegner is a master at dialogue, fleshing out characters who become so real, creating scenes and places that become just as real. The novel could have taken a touch of editing down and it's plot is not fast and furious as some readers need. For me he is about my favorite writer, it's a joy reading this. From here I'm moving on to 3 other Stegner books. Stunningly great writing.

My Second Favorite Book, 04 Jul 1998
After Zora Neale Hurston's,Their Eyes Were Watching God, this book is my next favorite. Wallace Stegner is a genius, a truly literary giant, equal to the likes of Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Balzac, and so on. The characters in this book are entirely real, in that they are great and not so great. But perhaps the best thing about the book is the beautiful writing. Just taking almost any sentence alone is a lesson in how to write. So original, so eloquent and so beautiful, it almost doesn't matter what the book is about. However, the book is also substantively great...about life and what it means to live it fully and genuinely. A great book.

No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Elegant and Poised, 14 Aug 2006
This novel captures the interace between two couples as they grow and mature both together and apart. The perspective of the elderly narrator brings a careful sensitivity and honesty to the relationships and the execution of the final set pieces is pitched just right. If you enjoyed any of the John Updike Rabbit books, or have enjoyed William Wharton's Tidings or Dad then you will love this.

A Gift To Be Savoured.......So Rich In Content, 08 Nov 2003
Crossing to safety is a novel which I took my time with, and savoured every written word. This was a blessing for it was my first experience with this author, and now having the majority of his books on my wish list, I'm going to have a ball.

We read about Larry and Sally Morgan and Charity and Sid Lang; two couples who meet in Madison Wisconsin, where their husbands are professors at the same university. The two couples become fast friends like love at first sight and soon they are so together and tight, sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; whatever. The Langs who are wealthy are unstiningly generous with their possessions. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy with the Morgans; no country too far that they cannot visit together and enjoy it's culture; no meal too costly or exotic that they cannot share and the beat goes on.

THE LANGS AND THE MORGANS leave no holds barred. They openly display their affection for each other, refusing to hide the fact that they enjoy their friendship which is based on love and trust. Their frienship endures and suffers all things, be they good, bad or indifferent, also creating bonds within their own families. Sid cannot live without Charity who is a perfectionist and a very dominant character, and Larry who holds a special bond with his wife Sally even more so, after a severe turn of events.

The novel starts with Larry as the narrator of the story. The couples are now in their sixties and the Morgans have been summoned from their New Mexico home to the Langs Vermont home retreat. A location where memories are still fresh and alive of past summers days and nights, and where presently there are experiencing some crucial developments. Developments important to them all and their children.

Larry takes us into the story from the beginning when they first meet in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as it is fitting gift for any occasion and will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Well written and highly recommended!!!

A must read, 20 Aug 1999
I discovered Wallace Stegner through my sister in San Francisco. I first read Crossing To Safety ten years ago and have reread it again and again. This story of friendship touched me greatly and I have shared it with many friends. I also recommend The Spectator Bird and A Shooting Star.

Beautiful, serious and thought provoking, 14 Aug 1999
A provocative story about the bond of friendship. Stegner's characters are vital, fully realized, complex, and thouroughly engaging. Though the story starts in simpler times, Depression era, the issues here (love, loyalty, staying true to one's self) remain relevant. The writing is poetic, even elegiac. I haven't been moved so deeply by a writer since my first introduction to Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've just finished Angle of Repose and I'm just starting The Spectator Bird. At this rate, I'll be through the Stegner catalog before Fall. I just can't get enough of this beautiful storyteller.

No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Elegant and Poised, 14 Aug 2006
This novel captures the interace between two couples as they grow and mature both together and apart. The perspective of the elderly narrator brings a careful sensitivity and honesty to the relationships and the execution of the final set pieces is pitched just right. If you enjoyed any of the John Updike Rabbit books, or have enjoyed William Wharton's Tidings or Dad then you will love this.

A Gift To Be Savoured.......So Rich In Content, 08 Nov 2003
Crossing to safety is a novel which I took my time with, and savoured every written word. This was a blessing for it was my first experience with this author, and now having the majority of his books on my wish list, I'm going to have a ball.

We read about Larry and Sally Morgan and Charity and Sid Lang; two couples who meet in Madison Wisconsin, where their husbands are professors at the same university. The two couples become fast friends like love at first sight and soon they are so together and tight, sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; whatever. The Langs who are wealthy are unstiningly generous with their possessions. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy with the Morgans; no country too far that they cannot visit together and enjoy it's culture; no meal too costly or exotic that they cannot share and the beat goes on.

THE LANGS AND THE MORGANS leave no holds barred. They openly display their affection for each other, refusing to hide the fact that they enjoy their friendship which is based on love and trust. Their frienship endures and suffers all things, be they good, bad or indifferent, also creating bonds within their own families. Sid cannot live without Charity who is a perfectionist and a very dominant character, and Larry who holds a special bond with his wife Sally even more so, after a severe turn of events.

The novel starts with Larry as the narrator of the story. The couples are now in their sixties and the Morgans have been summoned from their New Mexico home to the Langs Vermont home retreat. A location where memories are still fresh and alive of past summers days and nights, and where presently there are experiencing some crucial developments. Developments important to them all and their children.

Larry takes us into the story from the beginning when they first meet in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as it is fitting gift for any occasion and will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Well written and highly recommended!!!

A must read, 20 Aug 1999
I discovered Wallace Stegner through my sister in San Francisco. I first read Crossing To Safety ten years ago and have reread it again and again. This story of friendship touched me greatly and I have shared it with many friends. I also recommend The Spectator Bird and A Shooting Star.

Beautiful, serious and thought provoking, 14 Aug 1999
A provocative story about the bond of friendship. Stegner's characters are vital, fully realized, complex, and thouroughly engaging. Though the story starts in simpler times, Depression era, the issues here (love, loyalty, staying true to one's self) remain relevant. The writing is poetic, even elegiac. I haven't been moved so deeply by a writer since my first introduction to Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've just finished Angle of Repose and I'm just starting The Spectator Bird. At this rate, I'll be through the Stegner catalog before Fall. I just can't get enough of this beautiful storyteller.

Potent Language of Landscape, 24 Apr 2008
Stegner weaves together two basic narrative lines: that of a 58-year-old man with a degenerative bone disease and the narrative line of his grandmother who grew up in the artistically stimulating east US, but marries a man who takes her west and therefore removes her from the circles of art, literature and politics in the East to take her West to the wilder country of mines and surveying in which her husband is embroiled. Stegner's understanding of what constitutes the point at which families reach an 'angle of repose' is exemplary. It is a beautifully written book, the imagery and landscapes carved out of a land demanding potent language and given these by Stegner.

This book is still vivid, years after reading it., 27 Aug 1999
Angle of Repose was my first Stegner book. Chosen by my bookclub, half the members loved it, the other half found it frustrating, but we all agreed it would have made a great movie with Gary Cooper and ____? (choices for the female lead ranged from a young Barbara Stanwyck to Maureen O'Hara)...funny, we couldn't imagine it made with anyone in the current star circuit, it was definately an Old West story. Film version aside, Angle of Repose has held a place in my heart as a good read: images of Susan's art,her journals, the struggle up the rugged mountain road, the journeys to impossible places (not like travelling in this day and age), their house. I loved it. The only thing that my bookclub agreed on was that the ending of Angle of Repose kind of wimped out. It made more sense when we heard a recording of an interview shortly before his death when the interviewer mentioned that the ending was somewhat abrupt, and Stegner commented that he was in a hurry to get the book to his publisher, before he (Stegner)went on his way to Europe, so he kind of hurried the ending. What?! That aside, Wallace Stegner had a way of getting inside relationships, showing the love and/or the antagonism, like the couples in Crossing to Safety and the writer and the guy camping on his property in All the Little Live Things. Just a guess, but from the three Stegner books I've read, I would bet their author was a pretty feisty guy. There is a seduction to the antagonism, I wouldn't want it in my life, but I enjoy peeking at it in the lives of his characters.

Fantastic, meditative novel, 25 Aug 1999
As a child of the rural american west, including some of the places in this book, I was drawn to how stegner touches on our strange and sometimes masochistic desire to follow an american dream in this vast and sometimes empty land. The novel has a quiet, meditative quality that gets into your head, if you let it, and for me set off a long period of self-contemplation. The many subtle facets of this tale of wandering and identity make it one to read more than once, at different stages in life.

An excellently written book that touches the heart of every, 20 Aug 1999
Stegner is a master at bringing the essence of the important qualities of the well-lived life to the forefront. I am an avid non-fiction reader, but found myself reading all of Stegner's works. His characters have a realistic quality. Most often they are noble, but also very real.

Good story, but something's missing, 12 Aug 1999
The most interesting part of the book for me was Lyman Ward. I did not feel pity for him, but found his thoughts on "contemporary" 1970 society vs. his own and his grandmother's time and morals extremely telling of what the (late '60s) time was like for people like Lyman and Stegner (who was 61 at the time of publication). But I had some trouble really caring about Susan and Oliver, or little Ollie even. But the use of Lyman as narrator and participant was well done. It does not fit my image of a Pulitzer winner, with the likes of "Old Man and the Sea" and "The Caine Mutiny." "Angle of Repose" is a good, but not great book.

Harrowing, controversial, engaging and deeply moving, 09 Jan 1997
Wallace Stegner's novel attempts to strip away the layers of mythology created around songwriter, artist and organiser Joe Hill. Taciturn Swedish sailor, fervent Wobbly, possible murderer, victim of conspiracy and, ultimately, willing martyr - all these aspects of the legendary Trade Unionist are explored in an effort to get to grips with the "real" Joe Hill. Stegner has tried to penetrate the conventional IWW mythology around Hill, refusing to accept the simplistic interpretation of an innocent man fitted up by the law. Instead, the Joe Hill he writes of is human, multidimensional - possibly guilty but a flawed hero nonetheless. Stegner explores the creation of a martyr andthe creation of a myth. Reading the story of Hill adds a poignancy and human dimension to the formulaic elegies of folksong and syndicalist tradition.

What a talent Stegner was, 31 Jul 1999
I took a chance on this novel, having read Angle and Crossing. I have not been disappointed. This man had to be born to write, it flows and the pages turn and time is well spent. I am surprised there is not more on this book here. Stegner is a master at dialogue, fleshing out characters who become so real, creating scenes and places that become just as real. The novel could have taken a touch of editing down and it's plot is not fast and furious as some readers need. For me he is about my favorite writer, it's a joy reading this. From here I'm moving on to 3 other Stegner books. Stunningly great writing.

My Second Favorite Book, 04 Jul 1998
After Zora Neale Hurston's,Their Eyes Were Watching God, this book is my next favorite. Wallace Stegner is a genius, a truly literary giant, equal to the likes of Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Balzac, and so on. The characters in this book are entirely real, in that they are great and not so great. But perhaps the best thing about the book is the beautiful writing. Just taking almost any sentence alone is a lesson in how to write. So original, so eloquent and so beautiful, it almost doesn't matter what the book is about. However, the book is also substantively great...about life and what it means to live it fully and genuinely. A great book.

No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Elegant and Poised, 14 Aug 2006
This novel captures the interace between two couples as they grow and mature both together and apart. The perspective of the elderly narrator brings a careful sensitivity and honesty to the relationships and the execution of the final set pieces is pitched just right. If you enjoyed any of the John Updike Rabbit books, or have enjoyed William Wharton's Tidings or Dad then you will love this.

A Gift To Be Savoured.......So Rich In Content, 08 Nov 2003
Crossing to safety is a novel which I took my time with, and savoured every written word. This was a blessing for it was my first experience with this author, and now having the majority of his books on my wish list, I'm going to have a ball.

We read about Larry and Sally Morgan and Charity and Sid Lang; two couples who meet in Madison Wisconsin, where their husbands are professors at the same university. The two couples become fast friends like love at first sight and soon they are so together and tight, sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; whatever. The Langs who are wealthy are unstiningly generous with their possessions. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy with the Morgans; no country too far that they cannot visit together and enjoy it's culture; no meal too costly or exotic that they cannot share and the beat goes on.

THE LANGS AND THE MORGANS leave no holds barred. They openly display their affection for each other, refusing to hide the fact that they enjoy their friendship which is based on love and trust. Their frienship endures and suffers all things, be they good, bad or indifferent, also creating bonds within their own families. Sid cannot live without Charity who is a perfectionist and a very dominant character, and Larry who holds a special bond with his wife Sally even more so, after a severe turn of events.

The novel starts with Larry as the narrator of the story. The couples are now in their sixties and the Morgans have been summoned from their New Mexico home to the Langs Vermont home retreat. A location where memories are still fresh and alive of past summers days and nights, and where presently there are experiencing some crucial developments. Developments important to them all and their children.

Larry takes us into the story from the beginning when they first meet in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as it is fitting gift for any occasion and will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Well written and highly recommended!!!

A must read, 20 Aug 1999
I discovered Wallace Stegner through my sister in San Francisco. I first read Crossing To Safety ten years ago and have reread it again and again. This story of friendship touched me greatly and I have shared it with many friends. I also recommend The Spectator Bird and A Shooting Star.

Beautiful, serious and thought provoking, 14 Aug 1999
A provocative story about the bond of friendship. Stegner's characters are vital, fully realized, complex, and thouroughly engaging. Though the story starts in simpler times, Depression era, the issues here (love, loyalty, staying true to one's self) remain relevant. The writing is poetic, even elegiac. I haven't been moved so deeply by a writer since my first introduction to Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've just finished Angle of Repose and I'm just starting The Spectator Bird. At this rate, I'll be through the Stegner catalog before Fall. I just can't get enough of this beautiful storyteller.

Early hallmarks of Stegner's greatest works., 16 Jan 2003
On the front porch of their Iowa farm house, Margaret Stuart and her sister Elspeth watch the arrival of the funeral guests of Margaret's husband Alec. Having aged rapidly and before their time, the sisters appear to be twins; although in fact there is a seven year age difference between them. Living with them, grieving alone in his room is Malcolm, their son.

This is the introduction to Wallace Stegner's first short novella, written in 1936 as his submission to a prize contest held by Little, Brown & Co. (Not surprisingly, Stegner won.) We next see the sisters 18 years earlier, at Elspeth's arrival in Iowa. Margaret and Alec are a handsome and, it seems, happy couple; although there are early warning signs - Margaret complains about her husband's taste for alcohol, he about her moralizing. Soon after the arrival of Margaret's younger sister, pretty and ostensibly much more naive and innocent than Margaret, the relationship between the three begins to change; subtly but inevitably, until Margaret eventually stumbles into the discovery of her husband's affair with Elspeth. That discovery, almost more than the affair itself it appears, destroys the bonds between the sisters, between husband and wife, and between Elspeth and Alec. Yet, they go on living together, and together they raise Malcolm, the child born out of Elspeth's and Alec's relationship; held out as their nephew to minimize public shame. And while they keep themselves occupied with the farm business and with entertaining their neighbors, and even garner considerable outward success, inside they slowly dry up: Unlike in our end-of-the-20th/beginning of the 21st century culture, where "talk it over" and "bring it out" are the buzzwords of a society believing (perhaps rightly so) that for better or worse, problems not openly addressed will forever remain unsolved, an all-out display of the emotional turmoil besetting Stegner's heroes simply is not an option - in "Remembering Laughter" as little as in his later, Pulitzer prize winning "Angle of Repose."

Stegner's wife Mary revealed in a short afterword to Penguin's 1996 republication of "Remembering Laughter" that the story was based on two old aunts of hers, one a widow and one a spinster, who together had raised a son who could have been the child of either of them; Mrs. Stegner wasn't sure whose. Only 150 pages long, this first novella already has all the hallmarks of Stegner's later works - compelling characters and a keenly accurate portrayal of their social context, set in the vast, magnificent and often merciless environment of the Western prairies which Stegner loved so much. This novella is an excellent introduction to Wallace Stegner's work (incidentally, it is also a fine example of the reasons why Stegner is often credited with contributing to the redefinition of the novella in 20th century American literature) and a great morality tale condensed to its essentials; not easy to swallow but highly recommended.

Remember this novel:, 05 Jun 1999
Stegner's brief, taut novel tells a haunting story of infidelity and the destruction of life that happens in the midst of shameless behavior. Set in the rural Iowa around the turn of 20th C., Alec and Margaret meet her sister Elspeth, arriving from Scotland, at the train station. Before long, Alec and Elspeth are romantic and the child from their liaison becomes the source of constant pain and love between the embattled, embittered three.

Stegner writes a straight-forward tale, giving personality to Iowa landscape and seasons much like Willa Cather did in her novels and stories. For this, he is clearly one of the West's better writers.

What stays with you after reading this tale is the horror of shame and then the loneliness of shamelessness. Each character lives in his or her shadows until the spell is broken by the son: Malcolm.

This story is the iceberg's tip in morality and the shame that lost decisions bring with them. Just because this novel is brief does not mean that it is light. Read it for a quick study in morality, grief, shame, and love.

woNderfuL, 05 Apr 1999
i read this book out of pretty much force b/c of a project i had to do... but after reading it i was gLad i read this book. this book started out sLow b/c i didnt want to read this book but after like 10 pages i was hooked. this book is really good and very well detaiLed. i gaurantee that if you start you wont put it down until you finish.

No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Elegant and Poised, 14 Aug 2006
This novel captures the interace between two couples as they grow and mature both together and apart. The perspective of the elderly narrator brings a careful sensitivity and honesty to the relationships and the execution of the final set pieces is pitched just right. If you enjoyed any of the John Updike Rabbit books, or have enjoyed William Wharton's Tidings or Dad then you will love this.

A Gift To Be Savoured.......So Rich In Content, 08 Nov 2003
Crossing to safety is a novel which I took my time with, and savoured every written word. This was a blessing for it was my first experience with this author, and now having the majority of his books on my wish list, I'm going to have a ball.

We read about Larry and Sally Morgan and Charity and Sid Lang; two couples who meet in Madison Wisconsin, where their husbands are professors at the same university. The two couples become fast friends like love at first sight and soon they are so together and tight, sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; whatever. The Langs who are wealthy are unstiningly generous with their possessions. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy with the Morgans; no country too far that they cannot visit together and enjoy it's culture; no meal too costly or exotic that they cannot share and the beat goes on.

THE LANGS AND THE MORGANS leave no holds barred. They openly display their affection for each other, refusing to hide the fact that they enjoy their friendship which is based on love and trust. Their frienship endures and suffers all things, be they good, bad or indifferent, also creating bonds within their own families. Sid cannot live without Charity who is a perfectionist and a very dominant character, and Larry who holds a special bond with his wife Sally even more so, after a severe turn of events.

The novel starts with Larry as the narrator of the story. The couples are now in their sixties and the Morgans have been summoned from their New Mexico home to the Langs Vermont home retreat. A location where memories are still fresh and alive of past summers days and nights, and where presently there are experiencing some crucial developments. Developments important to them all and their children.

Larry takes us into the story from the beginning when they first meet in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as it is fitting gift for any occasion and will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Well written and highly recommended!!!

A must read, 20 Aug 1999
I discovered Wallace Stegner through my sister in San Francisco. I first read Crossing To Safety ten years ago and have reread it again and again. This story of friendship touched me greatly and I have shared it with many friends. I also recommend The Spectator Bird and A Shooting Star.

Beautiful, serious and thought provoking, 14 Aug 1999
A provocative story about the bond of friendship. Stegner's characters are vital, fully realized, complex, and thouroughly engaging. Though the story starts in simpler times, Depression era, the issues here (love, loyalty, staying true to one's self) remain relevant. The writing is poetic, even elegiac. I haven't been moved so deeply by a writer since my first introduction to Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've just finished Angle of Repose and I'm just starting The Spectator Bird. At this rate, I'll be through the Stegner catalog before Fall. I just can't get enough of this beautiful storyteller.

Potent Language of Landscape, 24 Apr 2008
Stegner weaves together two basic narrative lines: that of a 58-year-old man with a degenerative bone disease and the narrative line of his grandmother who grew up in the artistically stimulating east US, but marries a man who takes her west and therefore removes her from the circles of art, literature and politics in the East to take her West to the wilder country of mines and surveying in which her husband is embroiled. Stegner's understanding of what constitutes the point at which families reach an 'angle of repose' is exemplary. It is a beautifully written book, the imagery and landscapes carved out of a land demanding potent language and given these by Stegner.

This book is still vivid, years after reading it., 27 Aug 1999
Angle of Repose was my first Stegner book. Chosen by my bookclub, half the members loved it, the other half found it frustrating, but we all agreed it would have made a great movie with Gary Cooper and ____? (choices for the female lead ranged from a young Barbara Stanwyck to Maureen O'Hara)...funny, we couldn't imagine it made with anyone in the current star circuit, it was definately an Old West story. Film version aside, Angle of Repose has held a place in my heart as a good read: images of Susan's art,her journals, the struggle up the rugged mountain road, the journeys to impossible places (not like travelling in this day and age), their house. I loved it. The only thing that my bookclub agreed on was that the ending of Angle of Repose kind of wimped out. It made more sense when we heard a recording of an interview shortly before his death when the interviewer mentioned that the ending was somewhat abrupt, and Stegner commented that he was in a hurry to get the book to his publisher, before he (Stegner)went on his way to Europe, so he kind of hurried the ending. What?! That aside, Wallace Stegner had a way of getting inside relationships, showing the love and/or the antagonism, like the couples in Crossing to Safety and the writer and the guy camping on his property in All the Little Live Things. Just a guess, but from the three Stegner books I've read, I would bet their author was a pretty feisty guy. There is a seduction to the antagonism, I wouldn't want it in my life, but I enjoy peeking at it in the lives of his characters.

Fantastic, meditative novel, 25 Aug 1999
As a child of the rural american west, including some of the places in this book, I was drawn to how stegner touches on our strange and sometimes masochistic desire to follow an american dream in this vast and sometimes empty land. The novel has a quiet, meditative quality that gets into your head, if you let it, and for me set off a long period of self-contemplation. The many subtle facets of this tale of wandering and identity make it one to read more than once, at different stages in life.

An excellently written book that touches the heart of every, 20 Aug 1999
Stegner is a master at bringing the essence of the important qualities of the well-lived life to the forefront. I am an avid non-fiction reader, but found myself reading all of Stegner's works. His characters have a realistic quality. Most often they are noble, but also very real.

Good story, but something's missing, 12 Aug 1999
The most interesting part of the book for me was Lyman Ward. I did not feel pity for him, but found his thoughts on "contemporary" 1970 society vs. his own and his grandmother's time and morals extremely telling of what the (late '60s) time was like for people like Lyman and Stegner (who was 61 at the time of publication). But I had some trouble really caring about Susan and Oliver, or little Ollie even. But the use of Lyman as narrator and participant was well done. It does not fit my image of a Pulitzer winner, with the likes of "Old Man and the Sea" and "The Caine Mutiny." "Angle of Repose" is a good, but not great book.

Harrowing, controversial, engaging and deeply moving, 09 Jan 1997
Wallace Stegner's novel attempts to strip away the layers of mythology created around songwriter, artist and organiser Joe Hill. Taciturn Swedish sailor, fervent Wobbly, possible murderer, victim of conspiracy and, ultimately, willing martyr - all these aspects of the legendary Trade Unionist are explored in an effort to get to grips with the "real" Joe Hill. Stegner has tried to penetrate the conventional IWW mythology around Hill, refusing to accept the simplistic interpretation of an innocent man fitted up by the law. Instead, the Joe Hill he writes of is human, multidimensional - possibly guilty but a flawed hero nonetheless. Stegner explores the creation of a martyr andthe creation of a myth. Reading the story of Hill adds a poignancy and human dimension to the formulaic elegies of folksong and syndicalist tradition.

What a talent Stegner was, 31 Jul 1999
I took a chance on this novel, having read Angle and Crossing. I have not been disappointed. This man had to be born to write, it flows and the pages turn and time is well spent. I am surprised there is not more on this book here. Stegner is a master at dialogue, fleshing out characters who become so real, creating scenes and places that become just as real. The novel could have taken a touch of editing down and it's plot is not fast and furious as some readers need. For me he is about my favorite writer, it's a joy reading this. From here I'm moving on to 3 other Stegner books. Stunningly great writing.

My Second Favorite Book, 04 Jul 1998
After Zora Neale Hurston's,Their Eyes Were Watching God, this book is my next favorite. Wallace Stegner is a genius, a truly literary giant, equal to the likes of Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Balzac, and so on. The characters in this book are entirely real, in that they are great and not so great. But perhaps the best thing about the book is the beautiful writing. Just taking almost any sentence alone is a lesson in how to write. So original, so eloquent and so beautiful, it almost doesn't matter what the book is about. However, the book is also substantively great...about life and what it means to live it fully and genuinely. A great book.

No pain, no gain, 01 Jul 2008
`How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?' asks the author of his own characters, about two thirds through Crossing to Safety; that seems to be the challenge Stegner set himself.

The novel, running from the 1930s to the 70s, revolves around the friendship between two couples, the Langs and the Morgans, in which the men are both literature professors. The Langs are rich and endowed with extended families and the Morgans are self-made and orphans. They all lead full lives in which they remain by-and-large happily married.

Stegner is erudite, and he obviously loves the places he describes, from Madison, Wisconsin to Florence and including the secluded lakeside spot in New England where much of the book is set. But it is difficult to identify with characters whose lives are so uneventful. From the beginning, one of the protagonists is dying, but because the story is told from the perspective of the old Larry Morgan, that only comes out as looking back on a life well spent. The characters barely struggle, and when they do, Stegner chooses to skirt around their conflicts. The reader is left to enjoy his detailed and moody descriptions, his poetic quotes, and the contrasts between the depression and post-war eras: pleasant because the book is well written, but not very exciting.

`You don't,' would be my answer to Stegner's question. Judging from other reviews, obviously, I've come to