Synopses & Reviews
Introduction by Terry Tempest Williams Afterword by T. H. Watkins
Called a “magnificently crafted story . . . brimming with wisdom” by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.
Review
"Crossing to Safety must be the crowning achievement of Wallace Stegner's long and illustrious career as writer and teacher." Richmond Times Record News
Review
"A magnificently crafted story of the remarkable friendship between the Langs and Morgans....A novel brimming with wisdom on subjects as diverse as writing for money, solid marriages, and academic promotion policies with page after page of the superb descriptive writing that has been a hallmark of his work form the start and with a marvelous extended family of unforgettable major and minor characters." Howard Frank Mosher, The Washington Post Book World
Review
"Charity is one of the most vivid characters in fiction....[Stegner] is also superb at expressing a sense of place, and his intelligent voice makes cogent observations on American society in the decades of his setting. But most importantly, he speaks to us of universal questions, reflecting on 'the miserable failure of the law of nature to conform to the dream of man.' In doing so, he has created a believable human drama the dimensions of which reach out beyond the story's end and resonate in the reader's heart." Publishers Weekly
Review
"One of our greatest contemporary writers." The Washington Post
Review
"A superb book....Mr. Stegner's success with this story lies precisely in the absence of all these currently popular subject matters and the presence of quiet reexamination of what, close to the end, seems to have made life not only worth living but happy and almost fulfilled. Mr. Stegner has built a convincing narrative, has made survival a grace rather than a grim necessity, and enduring, tried love the test and proof of a good life. Nothing in these lives is lost or wasted, suffereing becomes an enriching benediction, and life itself a luminous experience." Doris Grumbach, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Called a "magnificently crafted story...brimming with wisdom" by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.
About the Author
The winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, Wallace Stegner is the author of a dozen novels and as many works of nonfiction, including Angle of Repose, The Spectator Bird, and The Big Rock Candy Mountain. The founder and director of the graduate writing program at Stanford University, he spent much of his life in northern California and Vermont. He died in 1993.