Jackson J. Benson has in this volume produced a superb literary biography of one of America's most underrated writers. The book in many ways reflects some of Stegner's own qualities as a writer. Stegner, in his biography of John Wesley Powell, BEYOND THE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN, emphasized that it was a biography of his professional, not personal, life. Although Benson does not neglect Stegner's personal life, the stress is very definitely upon his literary, academic, and environmental work. Benson does let us get to know Stegner the person, with his own quirks (he dislike of the sixties and youth counterculture, his love of Vermont, his avoidance of extremism, his love of community as opposed to rugged individualism), but unlike many modern biographers, he is not intent upon baring Stegner's inner life, warts and all. Benson, like Stegner, strives towards balance. In this he succeeds admirably.

Stegner vividly emerges in this biography as a profoundly principled, disciplined, committed, and morally courageous individual. The product of an impoverished childhood, later recounted fictionally in his semi-autobiographical novel THE BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN, Benson chronicles Stegner's drive to become a writer. In a sense, the book covers an uneventful life. Stegner did not do a great deal beyond write, teach, and speak out on a variety of environmental issues. Benson explores his friendships with mentors such as Bernard DeVoto and Robert Frost, to friends both famous and unknown, to students such as Ernest Gaines, Wendell Berry, and Ken Kesey.

Although primarily focused on Stegner's literary output as both a fiction writer and historian, Benson deals extensively with Stegner's work as a conservationist. Of all the major writers of the past century, Stegner almost certainly was more involved in environmental causes than any other. He did this not only through his writing, such as in his great biography of John Wesley Powell, but in his activities as part of the Sierra Club and in numerous environmental efforts, including working briefly as an advisor to Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall.

Most of all, this book created a portrait of a writer and human being worthy of respect. Stegner emerges as a good man, someone the reader would have enjoyed knowing. At this point in time, I have read only Stegner's book on Powell and ANGLE OF REPOSE, but between those two books and this excellent biography make me want to read a great deal more.

Wallace Stegner wrote about ordinary people trying to make sense of day-to-day existence. He wrote with an extraordinary clarity of description and dialogue that is best matched by the clear, keen air of the Western high country where he grew up. The reader will find no hyperbole in his books and no gratuitous violence or sex. He or she will find sorrow there and the ways of handling it that humans use to try to make sense of it. His books are explorations of the canyon lands of sorrow and of the ascent to the connections with other humans that require the forgiveness that makes our best solace in the face of regret. Professor Benson senses these themes and uses them as organizing principles in presenting Stegner's works as they map his life. The book is balanced in its presentations with no room for heroes, anti-heroes or villains of the stock variety, a reflection of both the author's scholarship and his subject's own approach to characterization. Jackson Benson's book, too, is the harvest of ten years research done carefully, using many contemporary sources including interviews with Wallace Stegner himself before his premature death after an auto accident in 1993. Professor Benson's writing style is fluid, clean and selfless as he gives us a portrait of a man who chronicled changes in America between the last of the frontier cowboys and the invention of cyberspace. It is the picture of a writer of the American West whose themes apply equally well anywhere on the globe that humans inhabit. This book is a fine introduction to Stegner's work for those who have never read him and a delightful comment, containing both criticism and appreciation, for those who have read Wallace Stegner and will enjoy a conversation with another, most astute, reader. It is another dip into the complexity of Wallace Stegner's fiction, essays and biographies and into the meaning in them that can be described as their author once described mountain streams: always running, always there. by Thomas Beresford, M.D., University of Colorado Health Sciences Center

Frankly, it just got a little long for me. Steinbeck was---and probably still is---my favorite American writer. This book reminded me why: Not only for the beauty of his prose and amazing powers of description, but for his uncompromising integrity, loyalty and devotion to his craft. I learned a lot about this man, but also about the book publishing business and the literary world.

One has to tip his hat to the author for the level of detail and the research performed, especially his good fortune in being able to interview all three of his wives. Reading this after reading most of Steinbeck's major works, gave insight into what drove JS to write each one of his works and helped dispel any misconceptions about his political tendencies and whether he was trying to write "political message" books or not.

Most appalling was to find out how little regarded Steinbeck was among the literary critics in the last 25-30 years of his life, to the point that they questioned the Nobel Prize Committee's decision-making process once JS was honored with the award.

There is a lot to learn in this book. I wouldn't have minded reading a little less detail on some of the progress (or lack of) on some of his lesser works and some of his travels. But for the Steinbeck fan, this is a must-read.

For my doctoral research, which involves the history of coastal California, I wanted one big, clearly written book that was solidly put together but not clogged with footnotes. I found it here. Fifteen years of research, some of it with friends and relatives of Steinbeck's, went into this biography, which reads like a straight-up narrative of the writer's adventurous life. Though long, it reads quickly, devoid of academic jargon. Highly recommended.

I just finished this one this morning, sticking around in bed for an extra twenty minutes to polish off to last chapter or so. What a surprise it is to find you're at page 1,038 and never even tired of the length along the way. It's a tale of an engaging life told in engaging language that grabs your attention and keeps you thoroughly engaged to the end. What a life John Steinbeck had, and what a way to tell it by Jackson J. Benson.

Benson must have started with near a mountain of research to draw together such a complete picture of Steinbeck's life. It's a task that could have caught lesser writer's struggling much like Steinbeck did with the translation of Morte D' Arthur in an unfinishable Pandora's Box of a book. But Benson sees it through with apparent love for the writer and care for the detail. In such a private life of a fiercely guarded private man, it's amazing that Benson adds such a degree of minute detail along the way. You realize some of the details have to be largely anecdotal and especially anecdotes loyally told carry a good degree of fiction with them. That's just what makes this book so magical and passionate...a life well told and lived carries a large freedom of fiction along with it. I think that John Steinbeck would have had it no other way. Actually, he probably would have hidden away from anybody trying to capture his life in words. It would have been a horror for him, but thank God we have this book from Jackson and are left with Steinbeck's writing.

I made the Haj to Salinas on Steinbeck's 100th Birthday and heard John Jr. speak about his Father and had a little birthday cake to boot. I played a game with the neighbor's kid as he held Benson's paperweight of a book and ran from me as I chased him down. I responded with horror as he launched it flying over the fence landing splayed on the ground. The adult in me told him, we don't throw rocks and we especially don't throw books. But as I wiped the dirt and dust off of the book and later finished the last fifty pages with grass stains burned into the leaves of pages...I was glad. A little California earth to go with Steinbeck. A book well worn is so more sacred than one pristine. I should have thanked the neighbor's son for the unintended connection. Rocks against the earth will never grow, but books picked up from the ground...now that's a different thing. For all those Steinbeck-philes don't miss this book. For those who have hardly heard of Steinbeck, there's a good deal of life in this book. I urge you not to miss out on that life.

Now I'm off to chase my neighbor's son around the back yard as he carries "The Grapes of Wrath" to the end zone...spike and score.

....especially during the first part of this book, and there seemed to be one misadventure after another, especially with his interviews, and I got tired of those too....and then it dawned on me (and I'm not at all certain the author would agree) that he was not only researching Steinbeck's life, but stumbling into parts of it.

Take his interview with Gwyn, Steinbeck's second wife. For me, what clearly emerged during the author's confrontation with her storytelling ability, her extraverted extravagance, and her occasional bullying, was that Benson was being made to feel exactly how Steinbeck would have felt, especially toward the end of the marriage. And the same with getting lost at times in New York, and feeling "out of touch" here and there, and worrying about bad reviews: I think the biographer actually became the subject of his biography a little, sharing from his own rather humble and introverted point of view what Steinbeck couldn't or wouldn't bring himself to write publicly about regarding his own private struggles, doubts, confusions. What a gift, all the way around.

This is a wonderful book--a real page-turner filled with delicious bits of information and satisfying insights into John Steinbeck's remarkable life and work. Benson disarms the reader with his self-effacing manner and unassuming style, but as he proceeds with the almost heroic story of how, over a period of some fourteen years, he researched, planned, wrote, and finally saw to publication his thousand-page biography of Steinbeck, it becomes clear that his virtues are not limited to modesty. They also include toughness, resourcefulness, and determination. It is a great story, and Benson has told it very well.

For any reader remotely interested in the trials and tribulations so frequently associated with writing a book, in this case a biography, this book is a must.
Jackson Benson spent fifteen years writing the definitive biography of John Steinbeck that originally began as a scholarly critique of his works. He was a young professor of American literature at a provincial university in 1970 and felt it part of his job to write about American authors: "I had no idea of writing a biography or of spending a major portion of my life doing so. No one in his right mind sets out to spend fifteen years researching and writing a book-it just sneaks up on you." With this confession the reader is drawn into a wonderful account of his efforts to "save" Steinbeck from what he saw as unjust criticism and general academic denigration.
The book is unusual for a variety of reasons. First, it is highly readable which is rare given the authors scholarly and academic credentials. Benson has a marvelous sense of humor and doesn't hesitate to spell out his own shortcomings and lapses that many times resulted in dire consequences of his own making. His original naivete and ill defined writing plan led to a variety of incidents that are described in a humorous and candid manner.
Second, the author doesn't hesitate to candidly reveal the myriad fears, frustrations, doubts and ever-present economic problems that dogged him throughout the writing process. In reading of his countless setbacks I am amazed he completed the book. His dedication, perseverance, resourcefulness and integrity are both amazing and heartening.
Third, this is a rare instance in which a biographer writes about himself. It is actually an autobiography of the biographer and is done with such grace and candor and style that it is as artful as the biography. This book stands alone as a masteful literary accomplishment notwithstanding its sister biography.

The book is a must have for writers, wannabe writers, researchers, or readers interested in biography, authbiography or the art and craft of writing. It is a unique insight into the writing of the definitive biography of a world literary figure whose centennial birthday is being celebrated throughout this year. The Joads would have been proud.

Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose is simply a wonderful novel--a serious piece of fiction about a marriage and marriage itself. Lyman Ward, a fifty-something professor whose own marriage has disintegrated has returned to his childhood home to write of the marriage of his grandparents, perhaps to determine why their marriage lasted through tremendous adversity when his own could not. His grandparents, Susan and Oliver Ward met in New York the 1870s, where she was a promising illustrator and he an engineer. They marry and travel West, living in various places, California, Idaho. Susan feels that she never quite fits into this "uncivilized" place, expressing her unsettleness beautifully in her letters to her good friend Augusta, who lives the life in New York that perhaps Susan felt she was destined to live. Lyman is fascinated with his grandmother, telling her story as he discovers how it unfolds through reading these Augusta letters, adding what he remembers from his own childhood. Lyman suffers from a degenerative bone disease and must rely on young Shelly Rasmussen to help him construct this book on his grandmother. Shelly has just escaped a failed "marriage" of her own. Lyman tells the story of his grandmother while also telling us both his and Shelly's stories seamlessly. Stegner's writing is beautiful and evocative. Angle of Repose is a big, beautiful, unique novel. Stegner's method of weaving the stories together works marvelously and so many of his sentences are simply perfect. Susan Ward's life(and Lyman's and Shelly's) is the believable story of a flawed human being--it's not picture perfect--there are no rosy endings for us here. However, the novel is very satisfying. Highly recommended.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel weaves past and present, and four generations of an American family into a masterful tale that combines history and geography with fascinating, psychologically complex characters. I couldn't put it down!

Our narrator, historian Lyman Ward, is a sick and bitter old man. Lyman's marriage has ended and he's confined to a wheelchair. He sets out to write a history of his grandparents' story, as pioneers carving out civilization in the mining camps of the 1870s West. Says Lyman, "I am not just killing time...many things are unclear to me, including myself, and I want to sit and think. Who ever had a better opportunity?" In the end his research tells him more about his own life than he's willing to admit. As Lyman says, this is a book about a marriage. "A masculine and a feminine. A romantic and a realist. A woman who was more lady than woman, and a man who was more man than gentleman."

Susan Burling is an artist from a genteel family in the East; Oliver Ward's a miner and a geologist, passionate about the West. They love each other, but in the end, their differences tear them apart. Susan wants a career and can never accept the rough life in the West as any match for the cultured life and opportunities she gave up. She feels trapped in a marriage on the wrong side of the continent. Oliver will do anything for Susan except leave the West. Neither of them are perfect people, but we sympathize with each and their struggle to understand each other. Two stories, past and present, merge. In the end, Lyman learns that achieving peace in any life's "Angle of Repose" requires the gift of forgiveness.

The Angle Of Repose, an odd title for a novel, is a term specific to geology: when an avalanche occurs, there is an angle at which all of the matter will settle, fall to rest. This depends on the terrain and the kind of matter it is which is falling. In Wallace Stegner's 1971 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, the "angle of repose" refers to the terrain of the individual and the emotional matter that needs settling. It tells the story of a historian, just past the realm of middle-age, who suffers from a debilitating bone disease. His wife has left him. And he spends the length of his days researching and writing the story of his own grandmother's life. I found the "angle of repose" to refer my own position on the sofa as I read this novel, never wanting to put it down. It falls into that realm of books which take hold the reader (you know the rare kind of book I mean). But I would caution that the narrator's story of his grandmother's life, a story of pioneers in the American West, is perhaps to

There are people who truly reflect their time, or at least a period within their life, and what they believed about it. Steinbeck is one of those people. This book presents some of his best work. It also shows a change in the times and the man. Steinbeck's time, at least the time he addressed in his best writing was the depression, World War II, and some of the fifties. Unfortunately, he did not quit then, and some of his later work is the writing of a man grown disillusioned and sad.

This book takes us through many years, and many places. Much of it is well known. It's really great when the topic is a personal friend, or an unsuspecting stranger (the article written after the death of Ed Ricketts, or the article about a French village in the Alps shortly after World War II). It gives a consistent voice to the views of one man and his reaction to the world around him. Much of it has been popular from time to time, and much of it has always been unpopular with a certain group of people. It would be easier to pick out the 'good' from the 'bad' is they were arranged chronologically, but they are not. If you are a fan of good writing, the whole book is 'good.' If you want to admire what Lee (in East of Eden) called 'clean thinking' skip the end. By the time I got to the middle of 'America and Americans' (about the last quarter of the book) it was getting old, and frankly I love Steinbeck's fiction so much that I could not finish it. By that time, it had become a litany of the complaints of my father, and the music was gone.

Critics argue about how great a writer Steinbeck was. One of their greatest criticisms was that he was too popular, or that he wrote for a popular following. That may be a valid criticism, and it may be one of the best reasons for reading his work. Which ever it is for you, it is here in abundance. The intimate details, the exacting prose, and the popular viewpoint. Whatever else we think, there is a Steinbeck voice that is unique, and worthy.

The strongest point in Steinbeck's writing is the sense of place. This book of non-fiction presents the land and the people. The real people and places who became Joad's, or Trask's, or sheriff's, are here in vivid detail. The Salinas of his youth, New York, France, Italy, traffic in Rome, and seaside villages are all vivid and inviting.

If you have read "The Harvest Gypsies" "The Log From the Sea of Cortez" "The Grapes of Wrath" or "East of Eden" many of the things in here will be familiar. If you have not, read this book. It may make them more appealing.

John Steinbeck (1902-68) wrote newspaper columns for two years during the 1950s in addition to reporting on the 1956 presidential nominating conventions and stints as a war correspondent during World War II and the Vietnam War. He also wrote some articles for magazines and the ruminations on America for a book of photographs that was his last book (and which fills about a quarter of this collection).

Always he wrote about his impressions, primarily of people. The best pieces in this collection are not accounts of foreign wars but of people in distinct places. Like Steinbeck's life, the book begins with Salinas, California, continues through San Francisco and New York City to Sag Harbor on Long Island, where Steinbeck lived in the 1950s and 60s. In the "Journalist Abroad" section there are strong pieces on people in Positano and Ireland. And there is a section on friends (all male, of course) including a long memoir of his idol and naturalist mentor, Ed Ricketts, and short but very illuminating memoirs of the popular WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle and the photographer Robert Capa (who accompanied Steinbeck on his Russian visit), plus concise tributes to Adlai Stevenson as an orator and to Henry Fonda as an actor.

The section "On writing" is regrettably short, and the selections of WWII colums from _Once There Was a War_ (a book which is in print) are mystifyingly missing the best ones, which Steinbeck wrote during the invasion of Italy. The Vietnam reports are unconvincing propaganda from what he presented as a war against Mao. (Brezhnev, perhaps, but not Mao!)

Many of the pieces are entertaining in the mock heroic Steinbeck manner of _Tortilla Flat_ and _Travels with Charley_ and some are moving. The text "America and Americans" had little impact. It certainly has not supplanted Tocqueville's analysis of democracy in America, but is not without interest. As generally for Steinbeck in fiction or nonfiction, the description of particular individuals is more interesting than the generalizations.

The editors provide useful introductions to the sections, but must think that Steinbeck's ideas and craft of the 1960s was the same as those of the 1930s. It is difficult but not impossible to find out when a particular piece was published but this vital information is not included in either the table of contents or with the title of the pieces.

As an educator interested not only in John Steinbeck's literature but also in his function as a cultural critic, I find this wonderful new edition, put together to coincide with a series of Steinbeck Centennial events going on all around America in 2002, to be a marvelous source of information. This will bring one of Steinbeck's lesser known and later works, "America and Americans," to the attention of many more people, and that text, which is both a celebration of the American experience and a cautionary warning about where we were headed, as Steinbeck saw it in the 1960s, would be a great selection for book club groups to read and discuss in this centennial year.

This 400+ page collection also has seven thematic chapters that explore Steinbeck's nonfiction and journalistic writing in these topic areas: places he loved, socio-political struggles, the craft of writing, friends and friendship, travel abroad, being a war correspondent, and miscellanea. This is great bedside reading: something delicious to dip into, eloquent and thoughtful, and one can jump around.

The editors are both noted Steinbeck scholars who are making this man accessible to the common people (we, the salt of the earth, whom he champions and celebrates in so many of his writings). Perhaps I am partial to John Steinbeck because I live in "Steinbeck Country," but I still think his works deserve our attention and study in the 21st century. He had a lot of significant insights--this book is a wonderful follow-up for those who have only yet experienced his fiction.