Where are the things that novelists seize upon and readers expect? Where is the high life, the conspicuous waste, the violence, the kinky sex, the death wish? Where are the suburban infidelities, the promiscuities, the convulsive divorces, the alcohol, the drugs, the lost weekends? They’ve been distant, in part, because of geography. They live in New Mexico where the weather is better for Sally’s polio, the malady she first suffered in one of the early summers at the Lang compound — and survived, in part, because of Charity’s support and encouragement. But there’s more, as Sally tells Hallie: There are rough edges galore among the other four. Charity is one of those highly competent people who likes to organize herself and everyone around her, particularly, in her case, her husband Sid, an English professor. She has great ambitions for him, but, although he looks like a Greek god, he’s a dreamy kind of a fellow, rich enough not to have to work hard. I think what he’s saying is that something as seemingly mundane as the friendship of two couples can be as riveting and universal as tragic choices or spectacular heroics. That everyday life — the life each of us lives — can be the subject of great writing.

I am their friend. I respect and love them both. What is more, our lives have been so twisted together that I couldn’t write them without writing Sally and me as well. I wonder if I could recreate any of us without my portraits being tainted by pity or self-pity. “I tell them now” Throughout his life, Wallace Stegner (1909–1993)—a novelist, historian and environmental activist—maintained an active correspondence with family members, writers, critics, Continue reading » The book never dragged for me, even though Charity’s bullying got on my nerves. Larry told his story well, even if he seemed much too self-contained. The premise of Crossing to Safety seems simple: Two young couples meet in 1937 as lowest-rung members of the University of Wisconsin faculty at Madison. They fall into friendship and, for the rest of their lives, through ups and downs, remain deeply bonded. This time I was less enamored with it, but not because I found fault with Stegner’s writing or storytelling.Larry only partially succeeds at becoming a successful novelist, and he does so late in life. Sid spends his life trying to get tenure writing articles that he doesn’t care about, but it’s all because of Charity. The couple is an ironic one: They are unsuccessful from the perspective of American literature because they don’t make much progress despite their idealist beginnings. The Langs remain unstable and alienated, even from each other, unable to conceive of a life that isn’t driven by the accumulation of capital. The Morgans never transcend their core struggle to find a community they naturally resonate with or find true satisfaction in their work. An undistinguished writing professor at Stanford when he was commissioned by the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) in 1955 to write ""an approved history of the oil venture's early days,"" future Continue reading » These 31 classic stories record much of the cultural climate of 20th-century America, its West in particular, constituting, as the NBA and Pulitzer Prize-winning author affectionately notes, not an Continue reading »

Reading the novel this time around, I found that I really didn’t like Charity, and I wasn’t too thrilled with Larry. And Sid, well, he was pretty wispy. He is saying to the reader that it is nearly impossible to write an interesting book about friendship, especially the friendship of two couples, from the point of view of one member of one of the couples. He is saying that quiet, private lives, such as those lived by Charity, Sid, Sally and Larry, have none of the pizzazz that popular novels seem to need. That a book of this sort would be read by no one.What Stegner is saying, essentially, is that such a book can’t be written, but — look! — I’ve written it.