Crossing to Safety is a 1987 semi-autobiographical novel by "The Dean of Western Writers", Wallace Stegner. It gained broad literary acclaim and commercial popularity.
In Crossing to Safety, Stegner explores the mysteries of friendship, and it extends Stegner's distinguished body of work that had already earned him a Pulitzer Prize (for 1971's Angle of Repose) and the National Book Award (for 1976's The Spectator Bird). Publishers Weekly described the novel as "an eloquent, wise and immensely moving narrative," and "a meditation on the idealism and spirit of youth, when the world is full of promise, and on the blows and compromises life inevitably inflicts." The story is told mostly in flashback; the narrator, Larry Morgan, and his wife, Sally, settle into their new home in Madison, Wisconsin, as Larry begins a term teaching creative writing at the university's English department. They soon befriend another couple, Sid and Charity Lang, and …
Crossing to Safety is a 1987 semi-autobiographical novel by "The Dean of Western Writers", Wallace Stegner. It gained broad literary acclaim and commercial popularity.
In Crossing to Safety, Stegner explores the mysteries of friendship, and it extends Stegner's distinguished body of work that had already earned him a Pulitzer Prize (for 1971's Angle of Repose) and the National Book Award (for 1976's The Spectator Bird). Publishers Weekly described the novel as "an eloquent, wise and immensely moving narrative," and "a meditation on the idealism and spirit of youth, when the world is full of promise, and on the blows and compromises life inevitably inflicts." The story is told mostly in flashback; the narrator, Larry Morgan, and his wife, Sally, settle into their new home in Madison, Wisconsin, as Larry begins a term teaching creative writing at the university's English department. They soon befriend another couple, Sid and Charity Lang, and learn of Sid's ambition to succeed as a writer. As their careers mature, they take different paths, but they spend much of their time together on summer vacations in the small Vermont town where Charity's family has been coming for decades.Stegner's powerful but unassuming narrative traces the bond that develops between the Langs and the Morgans from their first meeting in 1937 through their eventual separation on the occasion of Charity's death from cancer.
An interesting novel. In which there is hardly any plot, and just a wee bit of overblown conflict. So it's basically a novel-length character study.
But what a study. The characters were so finely drawn that we all recognized them. In ourselves, our spouses, our parents and our friends. We spent the evening talking about couple dynamics and gender roles, and even the interplay between friends.
Crossing to Safety is a deceptively simple book. On the surface it is simply a story of friendship, of bonds forged through both the best of what life has to offer and the worst, of commitment, understanding, love and forgiveness. Yeah, ho- hum, where is the excitement, the scandals, the infidelities, the drunken debaucheries, the betrayal?
Then you realize it's all life. No matter what actually happens its all a part of being alive, the human experience. It's about the choices we make, the will of commitment, the glue of love that holds life together and makes for a meaningful existence. And the reckoning that one day we will either be the one who has to leave or the one that is left. And most importantly how to continue.
The final 10% of this book could have been edited down by half to make a very touching and well-written short story. Unfortunately, the foregoing 90% is like a grandparent's overly-long Christmas letter, full of scrupulous detail about not-very-interesting lives and "wisdom" you should have already learned as a young adult. It's very rare that I don't finish a book, and if we hadn't been reading this for my book club, I never would have made it to the end. Some of the writing is lovely, but that's not enough to make up for the lack of almost any plot development whatsoever and the gratingly anachronistic dialogue. Not recommended.
