Wallace Stegner: Crossing to Safety (1987)

The life of Wallace Stegner encompassed much of the Twentieth Century, the American Century. He was born in 1909 and so was part of a generation of writers whose work straddled the Second World War, but seemed peculiarly unaffected by the great trauma that war created. His work is either 1930s or 1950s in tone, strangely mid-century.

The novel Crossing to Safety tells the story of two couples whose lives are intertwined and for whom joint experience enriches all concerned. They are white, affluent, College types to differing degrees. They experience the Depression together, and the bounty of the United States. It is a story of open vistas, unspoiled woodland, ample food, large cars and New England privilege. The mastery of Wallace Stegner’s prose, however, is that it is also a story of struggle for academic excellence, illness, poverty and personal industry.

It is narrated by Larry Morgan, who begins life in the university world with no money, and only his wits. It describes his struggle, his love of his new wife Sally, her subsequent illness, and how they cope with it. The parallel lives of Sid and Charity Lang are one of privilege, New England money, generosity and contentment.

The novel follows the four lives until the special four-way friendship is broken by illness, ageing and eventual death. Stegner is superb at presenting snapshots of the characters in different situations and different times of life, all the reminiscence of Larry. It is not all apple pie and beers by the barbeque.

You end up knowing the characters well, and understanding their attitudes to life as it passes. Larry muses on ageing and is not bitter but frustrated at the limitations it puts in his way and in the way of his friends. I found myself wondering how much was based on the author’s own life experiences, and aside from some of the locations that he knew well, it seems that little is actually based on firm reality. It reveals that Stegner was a writer of many gifts, and the foremost among these was such attention to detail that you end up completely convinced by the characters.

Despite the many jumps between the 1930s and early 1970s, one thing that is inescapable is the full stop of death. Even in fiction, time waits for nobody. How Stegner handles this, and his reflection on terminal illness, whilst not the most cheerful reading, are masterful.

This is a book for people who ponder mortality, who are confused by the hand of cards that life deals for us all, and those who fear the end. It is apparent that Stegner did not.