Wallace Stegner spent over fifty years writing and cranked out a tremendous amount of stuff -- fifteen novels, five histories, two biographies, plus hundreds of articles and short stories and occassional pieces. Consequently, much of this has not been republished. "Marking the Sparrow's Fall" is a new anthology edited by Stegner's son, Page, and a great introduction to all of his work. Uniquely, though, most of it is an unearthing of previously uncollected non-fiction.

Stegner himself referred to these pieces as "junk" that he wrote to buy the groceries with, but I think we would all be hard-pressed to agree with him. His son comments in the preface that most of this writing remained uncollected simply because Stegner -- a tremendously busy man -- forgot about it. "None of it qualifies as 'grocery-buying junk'", Page notes, "... certainly not the humor of 'Why I Like the West,' wherein he insists that as a wild man from the West 'I have always done my best to live up to what tradition says I should be. I have always tried to look like Gary Cooper and talk like the Virginian. I have endeavored to be morally upright, courteous to women; with an innate sense of right and wrong but without the polish that Yale College or European travel might have put upon me. I have consented to be forgiven my frontier gaucheries, and I did not hold it against the waiter in the Parker House bar when he removed my feet from the upholstery."

So here you'll find a handful of Stegner's better-known non-fiction -- two abridged chapters from "Wolf Willow", the "Wilderness Letter", and some other essays -- plus his famous short-story, "Genesis", the tale of an Englishman on the Saskatchewan frontier during the winter of 1906. But most of the book is made up of otherwise hard-to-find material, like his sketch, "Xanadu By the Salt Flats," the recollection of a summer he spent when he was fifteen flipping hot dogs at Saltair, an amusement park on the shores of Great Salt Lake.

Throughout the book, one is captivated by Stegner's incredible power to evoke the people and landscape and unfinished wars of the American West, a power that made him a pillar of the budding environmental movement in the 1950s and in the years up to his death in 1994. Personally, I found some of his conservation pieces in the middle of the book to be less interesting than his autobiographical sketches and fiction -- as I think anyone would -- but no Stegner anthology would be complete without them.

If you've never read Stegner, I guarantee you'll love this anthology. If you have read Stegner, this is a great way to get to know some of his lesser-known short pieces. A+ and five stars.

Reclaiming the Native Home of Hope delivers a top-notch set of essays and case studies on western ecosystems, species re-introduction, land management, and conservation. The majority of the setting is focused on the Utah wilderness with other stories spiraling out to the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau areas.

The essays challenge the traditional thinking about the best uses for these remote and relatively unpopulated areas (e.g., mining and ranching) and bring the natural qualities to the top of the list. The book's arguments to preserve ecosystems of the west are balanced with constructive thoughts on ways to preserve jobs and private land.

Stephen Trimble sums up the motivation for spending time in open, natural spaces in an essay called "Letting Go of the Rim." The kind of story that would have left Wallace Stegner smiling.

Drawing on his own childhood experience of rootlessness, moving about in western North America, Stegner digs deeply into our connection with place. Much of it is an account of personal history. From there he moves into a very touching analysis of living in the west and the impact we are having on the ecosystems of the west.

Stegner's use of the language is powerful. We've listened to the tape several times, while traveling, and it never ceases to move and to inform.

Wallace Stegner is an American treasure and one of the great writers of the American west. If you have never treated yourself to one of his books, why wait any longer? If you've read, say, "Angle of Repose" and wonder if his other works measure up, don't worry... they do. In this one, he tells the story of the itinerant Mason family over the course of 30 years, from just after the turn of the century until the early 1930s. You'll follow them from the Dakotas to Saskatchewan to Montana, Nevada, and Utah, as Bo Mason, intent on making it big, involves his family in a variety of get rich quick schemes, (some legal, some not) that emotionally wrench the family from one city to the next. They are always on the brink of either great wealth or abject poverty, of high society or a prison term. Stegner can weave a tale like few other writers. Very highly recommended.

This is a the saga of one man's struggle to obtain the American Dream. Bo Mason, like many men before him, dreamed of travelling to the West to make his fortune. This story, however, is different. Far from being the myth of the lone, brave, heroic rugged individualist, Bo Mason's self-centeredness involves dragging his loyal wife, Elsa, and their two sons from place to place to place in his search for wealth. His family never develop roots nor a sense of belonging. Mason is also blind to the suffering and degradation he causes his family. One of his get rich quick schemes, bootlegging, exposes his family to great danger--both from the law and the lawless. He is also a very complex man: when things go right for him, he is a loving father and husband, and full of fun and jokes; he is a great story teller. When his business fall apart, he is sullen and subjects his sons to abuse. He is ultimately a failure.

This is a novel which is rich in character development. You genuinely care for each and character. There is a great sense of time and place. Each scene of the book is well imagined and beautifully "visualized." It is also harrowing, often sad, and ultimately tragic. In the end, as it is in real life, it is up to the younger generation, here, the younger son, Bruce, to achieve, perhaps in a more modest way what the father could not.

Big Rock Candy Mountain is one of the most beautiful and powerful novels I've read. Bo and Elsa Mason are two characters that are so memorable and vivid, you feel as if you truly know them. Stegner is a literary master and one of the most talented and prolific writers of all time. If you enjoy reading about the West, then this book is a necessity. What is so wonderful about this novel is the reality of it - all the characters and events feel so real. You will not be able to put it down. My sister, who doesn't read many novels, stayed in our hotel room to read this book while we were in Italy. What a testament to the greatness of this novel.

From the early 1500's up through and culminating with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, DeVoto's genius shines through , leaving no stone unturned for North American exploration. We read about the exploratory efforts of the Spanish, French, English and Americans, all attempting to locate the mythical water passage to the Pacific for commerce and trade.There is much to be learned from "Course of Empire" and the reader will no doubt come away enlightened with a better understanding of North American exploration. The book can also become somewhat exhaustive for some readers, with over 600 pages (including notes). At times the reader is subjected to the international diplomatic chessgames of geopolitical strategies, with the resulting ramifications thereof, between Spain, France, England and the U.S. This can, and somewhat does, act as a brain defoliant, putting the reader into periodic states of sluggishness and fog. Still, a most insightful read of how North America was discovered. An historical classic.

Occasionally, I discover a book that is so great that I just want to grab my friends by the lapel and shout, "You just have to read this!" DeVoto in THE COURSE OF EMPIRES is not only highly informative, he has helped alter the way I view the course of American history and the way I view the geography of the United States. The book is not only informative and vision-altering: it is superbly well written. As a writer, Bernard DeVoto reminds me a great deal of Shelby Foote's historical work on the Civil War. Both DeVoto and Foote are novelists who brought their formidable literary skills to historical subject matter, and who framed their histories as narratives. Also like Foote, DeVoto never allows his narrative to overwhelm the history. At this point, this is my favorite book of all that I have read in 2002.

On one level, the content of this book is displayed by the maps that begin each chapter of the book: a topographical map of North America is shown, with the areas as yet unexplored by Europeans in a gray shade. With each successive chapter, less and less of the map is shrouded in gray. But in a way, this is deceptive, because, in fact, the book is less about the history of the exploration of the US than in illustrating the geographical logic of the landmass currently making up the core of the United States. Or, as DeVoto writes in the Preface, he wants to provide an extended gloss on some paragraphs of Lincoln's Second Address to the Nation (i.e., what today would be called his second State of the Union address). In that Address, Lincoln argues that the geography of the United States makes it impossible for there to exist more than one nation in the region. The notion of secession and the formation of a second nation is repudiated by the land itself, not merely the lack of natural barriers of one area from another, but the way in which the entire region was unbreakably linked together by the extensive river system in the American interior. Lincoln saw that the geography, the river system, made it inevitable that there would be but a single nation. In this way, Lincoln, like no American president since Polk and Jefferson, understood the logic of the land. DeVoto's primary task in his book, far more than recounting the history of the exploration of North America, is the elucidation of the fact that the United States was destined to be a single country, and why this was inevitable.

THE COURSE OF EMPIRE has the best maps I have ever seen in a history book. No matter what part of the book I was reading, it was possible to turn only a few pages away to find a map of the area under discussion. The only exception is near the very end of the book, where a key but cramped map of the Lewis and Clark expedition appears. It was, however, the only time that I had any trouble following one of the maps. Unfortunately, it was during the highpoint of the book: the recounting of Lewis and Clark's discovery of a route from the Missouri to the Columbia River, and the exploration of the region.

Although this is the third book in the trilogy of history books DeVoto wrote on the American West, this is the one that should be read first. Both ACROSS THE WIDE MISSOURI and YEAR OF DECISION: 1846 will be enriched by having read this one first. I heartily recommend that anyone with any interest in American history read this. For those especially interested in the American West, it is nothing short of essential.

De Voto's narrative of the first three centuries of European exploration in North America is a classic -- inevitably superceded in some details since its publication (1952) but unmatched in conveying a sense of the continent's geography as perceived by the early adventurers. Although it's not as tightly integrated as the more chronologically limited "Year of Decision", this is probably De Voto's finest work.

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 tight and friendly, they are sharing everything.........food, houses, money, children; everything. The Langs who are wealthy and generous, share their possessions unstintingly with the Morgans. There is no adventure too exciting that they cannot enjoy together; 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 met in Wisconsin, until the present where they have gotten on in age. Bless someone with this great book as a Mother's day gift, and you will make an indelible mark on that person's life. Highly recommended!!!

Nutface
April 17th, 2002

A colleague of mine recently finished Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner and encouraged me to read it. I thought we had a copy laying around but instead found that we only had Crossing to Safety so I picked it up and started to read.

This book was perfect for the fall season, I suppose it may be that I only feel that way since I read it in the fall, and if I had read it during the summer I would have felt the same then, but something in the tone and meter just felt so fallish to me.

Self-referentially the author asks in dialogue "How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?" The first chapter starts in the twilight of the character's life and then invests the rest of the story setting the stage for the setting sun.

The book was a joy to read, due to the rich and beautiful writing. There are times when reading books you skim the sentences, with this book I found my self savoring every word and truly encompassed by the writing. The first half is so lyrical in content, I could in many ways identify with the poor married couple starting life out with nothing to eke by on. As the story progresses the idealism of youth is tempered by the reality of life. Each Eden has its serpent, and life has a way of providing crosses to bear. I wont spoil any of the tale by telling.

This has to be one of the best books I have ever read, a wonderful journey that I did not regret and was sad to see end.

http://www.niffgurd.com/mark/books/2002.html#safety

Wallace Stegner is a fine writer. Yet in many of his works, there is an inescapable darkness, a feral sadness-unresolved. Not here. In "Crossing to Safety," Wallace Stegner reveals a writer's soul unleashed. He eclipses the complicated, beautiful constructs of "Angle of Repose" (a fine book) by telling a simple, moving tale of two couples who love each other in the deepest and finest sense of the word. He weaves decades of disappointment, grief, and broken dreams into the astonishing, inescapable conclusion that this love, this caring, this friendship has given meaning to every dark moment and transformed them into a bridge to joy. This book resonates in the deepest recesses of soul because it gives meaning to pain without enshrining it. It speaks to hope and healing, both hallmarks of enduring love, with an honest eye and a gifted voice. It imparts courage and comfort at the same time. Buy it. Buy several copies. Once you read it, you will want to read it again and the friends you lend it to won't want to give it back... and you will understand and want them to keep it

Bruce Mason, a diplomat and ambassador in his sixties, returns to Salt Lake City for the funeral of his aunt, who is the last remaining connection to a family history Mason has spent forty years avoiding. During the day and night he is there, he travels throughout Salt Lake, trying to locate landmarks from his troubled early life while reminiscing about the events which permanently influenced choices he made and directions he took as an adult. Gentle and reflective in tone, despite its scenes of sadness and disillusionment, this is a novel quite different from Stegner's epics, such as Angle of Repose and Big Rock Candy Mountain, with their enormous scope. Here, he creates what amounts to a memoir--a record of the life-changing experiences which one man, Mason, associates with his family, friends, and upbringing during the brief 24 hours he is in Salt Lake City.

Although this is supposed to be a sequel to Big Rock Candy Mountain, with the same main character, one need not have any familiarity with that book to enjoy this one, a book so introspective that one cannot help but wonder about the degree to which it is autobiographical. Like many of us who have outlived and, in some cases, out-achieved our parents, Mason finds his memories bittersweet. He is filled with resentment for the unintentional injuries and deliberate cruelties which made his youth and adolescence a misery. At the same time that he recognizes that he would never have been so motivated to achieve and escape had he not been so needy and so "hungry."

Though many authors have dealt with the "you can't go home again" theme, Stegner suggests here that one must go home again, not to relive early, unpleasant events again and again, stuck in the past, but to relive those events and reevaluate them from the perspective and experience one has gained over time. Unsentimental and uncompromising in its message, the book is a touching and sensitive look at the baggage we all carry with us and the need to put it aside.

As I indicated in my review of Stegner's BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN (hereafter "BRCM"), reading fiction does not get better than reading Wallace Stegner (1909-93). His Pulitzer Prize winner, ANGLE OF REPOSE (1971) is my favorite novel, and BRCM (1943) is an equally moving book. It is easy to consider RECAPITULATION (1979) the icing on BRCM.

RECAPITULATION is best read as a sequel to BRCM. Among other things, BRCM was about a father-son relationship, a son, Bruce Mason's hatred for his father, and his lifelong attempt to come to terms with his troubled family. RECAPITULATION picks up with Bruce Mason's return to Salt Lake City roughly 45 years after leaving there in Stegner's earlier novel. For Bruce, Salt Lake City is the place where "I buried my brother, my mother, my young love, and my innocence. In a few months more I buried my father and my youth" (p. 84). This is not a homecoming story. "Home," Bruce observes, is only "another word for strange" (p. 73).

During his life, Stegner commented that RECAPITULATION is about "the domination that a harsh and dominating father can exert even after his death upon a son. What is revealed in this novel is the incurable damage done to Bruce Mason." In the beginning pages of this book, we find Bruce living mostly "in his head," like "the last spectator at the last act of a play he had not understood" (p. 274), his self image fused with the image of his family. He remembers his father, Bo, as a "boomer, self-deceiver, bootlegger, eventually murderer and suicide, always burden, always enigma, always the harsh judge who must be appeased" (p. 274). Through a series of flashbacks, however, in the end RECAPITULATION is about Bruce's transformation and survival. Although "incurably" damaged, he reaches a point of autonomy and finds the understanding he longed for in BRCM: "If a man could understand himself and his own family, he'd have a good start toward understanding everything he'd ever need to know" (BRCM, p. 436).

Both BRCM and its sequel are autobiographical. Stegner wrote RECAPITULATION late in his career, and it contains some of his finest writing, e.g., "When cottonwoods have been rattling at you all through your childhood, they mean home" (p. 116).

G. Merritt

When a real-life event pulls you back into The Past, where you didn't want to go, this is what happens. Though not an action-packed thriller, it is elegant and touching.

I kept waiting for this book to get boring. It has all the potential to be boring. But it's not. It's an excellent introduction to the history of the West. I learned little tidbits about all sorts of varied subjects - Native American tribes, government, the history of the USGS. Stegner does get a little too wrapped up in the details at a couple points, especially when he gets into all the wrangling in Congress over Powell's various ventures, but in general it's an excellent book.

This classic work is a penetrating and insightful study of the public career of Maj. John Wesley Powell, from the beginning of the Powell Survey, which most famously had Powell and his men descend for the first time by anyone the Colorado River, to his eventual ouster from the Geological Survey. Stegner does a magnificent job of detailing both the myriad accomplishments by Powell in his remarkable career as public servant, but the philosophy and ideas that undergirded his work. Most readers at the end will conclude that the history of the United States might have proceeded differently had his profound insights into the nature of the American West been heeded.

Stegner writes in a lucid, clear, frequently exciting prose style. Although his history is solid, his writing is somewhat more. For example, at one point Stegner writes of one person who was more than a little deluded about the nature of the West: "The yeasty schemes stirring in Adams' head must have generated gases to cloud his eyesight." Especially in context a brilliant sentence, and not of the quality one anticipates in a historical work, especially one that deals at length with questions of public policy. The volume also contains an Introduction by Stegner's mentor and teacher Bernard DeVoto, an essay that contains in a few pages the heart of DeVoto's own understanding of the West, and which alone would be worth the cost of the volume.

Stegner does an excellent job of relating Powell's own insights and visions to those of others of the day. He contrasts Powell's philosophy with the desires and urges of the people who were rushing to obtain land in the West, and the politicians who were trying to lure them there. He points up similarities and differences in his way of looking at things, from those stoutly opposed to his views, and those in some degree sympathetic to him, like Charles King and the oddly omnipresent Henry Adams. From the earliest pages of the book to the very end, Stegner brings up Adams again and again, which is somewhat unexpected since Adams is not an essential participant in this story.

I have only two complaints with the book, one stylistic and the other substantive. The book contains a few maps but no photographs, and this book would have profited greatly from a number of illustrations. He refers to many, many visual things: vistas, rivers, people, paintings of the West, photographs of the West, maps, Indians, and locales, and at least a few photographs or illustrations would have greatly enhanced the book.

The second complaint is more serious. Stegner is completely unsympathetic to the attacks of Edward D. Cope on Othniel C. Marsh and, primarily by association, Powell. The Cope-Marsh controversy was, as Stegner quite rightly points out, the most destructive scientific controversy in United States history, and one that does absolutely no credit to either major participant. My complaint with Stegner's account is that he makes Cope sound more than a little psychotic, and his complaints more symptoms of mental illness and irrational hatred than anything generated by reasonable causes. Cope's hatred of Marsh was not rational, but neither was it baseless. Cope had indeed suffered grievously at the hands of Marsh, who had used his own considerable political power to prevent Cope from obtaining additional fossil samples. In this Powell was not completely innocent. I believe that anyone studying the Cope-Marsh controversy in greater detail will find Cope and not Marsh to be the more sympathetic figure, and certainly the more likable. The careers of both Cope and Marsh were destroyed by their controversy, but so also was that that of Powell greatly diminished. I can understand why Stegner is so unsympathetic to Cope, while at the same time believing that he overlooks the justness of many of Cope's complaints.

This book written in 1954 not only captures the story of this remarkable man, Major John W. Powell, but also discusses and reflects on the challenges of too many people living in the Western desert. As a resident of a now "drought impacted state" the wisdom of Powell's ideas and the lack of implementation of those ideas are represented in the chaos local and state governments are facing as they attempt to keep lawns green, golf courses open, and drinking water available for all of the "new" residences of the state. I only hope that some of this generations politicians pay attention to Powell's "topographical" analysis and begin shaping more effective land and water policy for the West. A terrific read with many classic Stegner quotes.

Why have I revisited Stegner so soon after reading "Angle of Repose"? I don't really know. I cannot say "Angle of Repose" is excellent literature, although I do say that it is very good. I guess I just wanted to give Stegner another chance. I chose to read this book, "The Spectator Bird," in order to try and understand Stegner a bit better and give him that chance. For those who don't know, Wallace Stegner wrote many books, both fiction and non-fiction, with the American West as their theme. "Angle of Repose," his best known work (it's on that top 100 list from a few years ago), won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize. Stegner died in a car accident in 1993, at the age of 84.

"The Spectator Bird," written five years after "Angle of Repose," tells the story of Joe Allston. Allston, a retired literary agent, lives in California with his wife Ruth. Life has not been good for Allston; he had a son that died, he's been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and his life has been one uninteresting blur. His work as a literary agent left him on the sidelines, as a spectator to the success of others. Except for one event: a trip to Denmark some 20 years prior, when Allston and his wife tried to track down the village where Joe's mother came from. A postcard from Astrid, the Danish woman that the Allstons stayed with on the trip, arrives in the mail and inspires Allston to dig up a journal he wrote while in Denmark. Joe reads the journal to his wife, and together, they relive their journey. Just as in "Angle of Repose," a dark secret emerges at the end of the journal. This leads to revelations that improve the relationship between Joe and Ruth.

That's it, in a nutshell. I have to say that "Angle of Repose" is the better of the two books. "The Spectator Bird" is much shorter, for one thing. It also is not nearly as rich, in its prose, as "Angle of Repose." While this makes "The Spectator Bird" somewhat more accessible, it also lessens the effect of the work. In "Angle of Repose," Stegner's ability to create atmosphere and character depth is simply breathtaking. This does not happen as often in "The Spectator Bird."

Wallace Stegner is probably best described as a reactionary. He often places his characters in opposition to the 1960's counterculture movement. Stegner tries to show that old values are not worthless, but rather the correct and healthy ones. It is these values, if studied and listened to, which can solve problems in the present. It's not hard to imagine that Stegner, with his novels and writings, represented the "silent majority" of Richard Nixon fame.

I apologize for comparing "The Spectator Bird" with "Angle of Repose." Many of the reviews on Amazon seem to make similar comparisons, and many of the readers seem to start out with "Angle of Repose," just as I did. While "The Spectator Bird" isn't on the level of "Angle of Repose," it is still entertaining reading. Enjoy!

I had to read another book by Wallace Stegner after reading Angle of Repose. I didn't think this would have a chance of measuring up to Angle of Repose, and it didn't. That's not a put-down though because that just means it is around number two on my all-time favorite list. One reason I thought I would have trouble with The Spectator Bird is that it is about aging and about a long marital relationship, and I'm eighteen. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to relate to its themes. I was very wrong. Even though I haven't lived seventy years and do not know many of the feelings Joe Alston had, I was able to learn from the novel. The Spectator Bird gave me many insights into the live of my grandparents and even my parents. I have seen my family members grapple with the questions about their own lives that Joe fought with in The Spectator Bird. I have also witnessed relationships like that between Joe and Ruth. The book has helped me to see some of what their existance is like and also what mine will look like in the future. The Spectator Bird is just an amazing book. Nobody writes as well as Stegner. I don't know how many lines of his prose I have written down so that I can remember them. The characters are also so multi-dimensional. It seems like you know them (and the author) so well. The Spectator Bird is just a beautiful and satisfying read which I plan to revisit in the future and which I plan to recommend to any intelligent readers. Stegner needs to be read more often.

When people ask who my favorite author is, Wallace Stegner is invariably one of the four or five names I toss out. And often I get the same response... "I've never read any Stegner" or even "I don't know the name". Stegner seems to be one of American literatures best kept secrets.

This book won the National Book Award in 1977. It's about Joe Allston, a retired literary agent, who lives with his wife in California. He is 69 years old and looking back at his life with a sense of discontent. He and his wife relive a trip they took to Denmark 20 years before, by reading a journal that Joe kept while they were there. The plot line switches back and forth from the present to the past.

This book is about the choices we make in our lives and how they affect everything that comes after. It's about aging and death, and foremost about life. Stegner writes about real life in such intimate terms that it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck (at least it does that to me). Needless to say, a very highly recommended read.

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