wallace stegner crossing to safety summary

However, she is also generous and wants her friends to share in their success and helps Larry and Sally both financially and socially.Īs well as the low points of their lives the novel also recounts the happy and joyful experiences the couples encounter. She knows what she wants and imposes her ambitions on Sid. She take the direct ‘compass’ direction in whatever she does and her confidence is not undermined by others’ doubts or different ideas. Charity is the strong, ambitious, self-confident organiser, not only of her own life, but also of those of her family and friends. The Morgans’ lives are changed by Sally’s illness and at different stages in the book I thought, ‘this is what happened to Sally’, but it’s not clear until about halfway through the book precisely why Sally is paralysed. I had to get the atlas out to see where Wisconsin and Vermont are, as I had no idea of the distance between the two, nor the difference in the landscape.Ĭharity and Larry are the dominant characters. Whereas in Angle of Repose Stegner depicts the American West, Crossing To Safety is set mainly in the landscape of northern New England, where the wilderness is seen as no less dangerous than in the West, particularly in the camping trip the Langs and the Morgans take. Sally is in a wheelchair and from that point Larry looks back over their lives. Sally and Larry have travelled to Battell Pond in Vermont for a reunion with the Langs. At the start of the novel we are told that Charity, Sid’s wife is dying.

Both he and Sid Lang have jobs in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin and their lives are intertwined from the moment they meet, when both their wives are pregnant. Larry Morgan is the narrator and the events are seen through his eyes. In essence, the novel recounts the lives of two couples who first met during the Depression in 1930s America and the joys and difficulties they encounter throughout their lives. It has so much to say on many different themes that I’m lost where to start in describing and considering its impact on me. I’ve read a lot of good books recently, but without a doubt this is one of the best books I’ve read this year. It is a story about love, marriage, friendship, relationships, ambition, illness and death in other words it’s about life and death. I was engrossed in the story and felt as though I was part of it – such is the power of Stegner’s writing.

Unusually for me I read it straight through, on its own, abandoning the other books I’m reading to concentrate on just this one book. It’s a beautiful, and thought provoking novel and I loved it.

Crossing to Safety was Wallace Stegner’s last novel published when he was 78 years old.

Wallace stegner crossing to safety summary