Wallace Stegner, an American author born in 1909, is perhaps best known for his Pulitzer Prize winning novel Angle of Repose (1972). He wrote for six decades – novels, short stories, biographies and essays. Crossing to Safety was Stegner’s last novel, published in 1987 when the author was seventy-eight years old, and it’s the first of his books I’ve read.
Let me say upfront that on reading the first 60 pages of Crossing to Safety I already knew it had the potential to be one of my favourite books of the year, and I’m sticking with this thought. It’s an exceptional book – eloquent, graceful, wise and deeply moving.
The story opens in 1972. Larry Morgan, successful author and college Professor, and his wife Sally have journeyed to Battell Pond, Vermont, the home of their dear friends Sid and Charity Lang. It’s a place the Morgans have visited many times in the past, and on their return Larry recalls how he and Sally met the Langs back in the late 1930s. From here, Larry narrates their story through a series of flashbacks starting with the Morgans’ move to Madison, Wisconsin in 1937.
Larry, a bright, hard-working graduate and budding author, has gained his first role, a nine-month slot teaching English in the University of Wisconsin. He’s married to Sally, a calm, humane and loving woman whom he met at Berkeley College. Soon after their arrival in Wisconsin and desperately short of money, the Morgans meet another young couple at a similar stage in their lives – Sid Lang, another young member of the English Department, and his vibrant, beautiful and headstrong wife, Charity. The Langs are comfortably off, their warmth and generosity knows no bounds, and they quickly take Larry and Sally under their wings:
When the Langs opened their house and their hearts to us, we crept gracefully in.
Crept? Rushed. Coming from meagreness and low expectations, we felt their friendship as freezing travelers feel a dry room and a fire. Crowded in, rubbing our hands with satisfaction, and were never the same thereafter. Thought better of ourselves, thought better of the world. (pg. 37, Penguin Classics)
And so begins a deep and lifelong friendship between the two couples. These early years are full of promise for the Morgans and Langs. They share hopes, dreams and a desire to contribute; they wish to leave their individual marks on the world. Stegner captures this mood in vivid, luminous prose, which I hope to illustrate through the passage quoted below – it’s a prose style somewhat reminiscent of James’s Salter’s in Light Years. Here’s Larry as he recalls the foursome skating on Lake Montana in the presence of iceboats and a little airplane (both Sally and Charity are pregnant at the time):
I remember the gray, snow-spitting afternoon, the bite of cold wind on chin and cheeks and brows, the cold of feet cramped into too-small borrowed skate shoes, the throttled-down whistle and mutter of the plane landing behind me, the vision of a racing ice-boat shearing away with one runner off the ice and the operator spread-eagled on the deck, and the sight of Sally and Sid leaning and stroking, and Charity gliding by, portly and exhilarated, encouraging me while I flounder flabby-ankled, and fall down, and get up, and fall down again.
But I remember even better the hour afterward in our basement, hot buttered rum and Sally’s cinnamon rolls still warm from the oven. Red faces, tingling skin, exuberant vitality, laughter, and for Sally and me the uncustomary pleasure of giving instead of taking. (pg. 60)
But as time passes, we discover that not everything in the garden is rosy. Charity is a force to be reckoned with; always organising others, always needing to control and direct key decisions. She’s desperate for Sid to succeed, to secure tenure at Wisconsin, and her heart is set on building a future for their family. While Sid would prefer to spend his time writing poetry, Charity pushes him to write academic papers, ideally articles that stand a good chance of publication, as she knows the higher-ups in the English Department value such things.
As the novel progresses, Stegner reveals further tensions in the Langs’ marriage, and these pressures are visible to Larry and Sally, too:
Eden. With, of course, its serpent. No Eden valid without serpent.
It was not a very big serpent, nor very alarming. But once we noticed it, we realised that it had been there all along, that what we had thought only the wind in the grass, or the scraping of a dry leaf, was this thing sliding discreetly out of sight. Even when we recognized it for what it was, it did not seem dangerous. It just made us look before we sat down. (pg.163)
To a certain extent, the Langs’ marriage is built on mutual dependence. Sid needs Charity to give structure to his life, to provide direction; Charity needs someone to manage. The trouble is ‘she’s never wrong’. There’s a different dependence between Larry and Sally, their relationship is less strained and they feed on each other’s love and support. Sally becomes dependent on her husband for physical care, and it’s clear that she’s the bedrock of Larry’s world. Sally and Charity also share a strong bond illustrated here by Larry’s reflections on the relationships that exist between the two couples:
Charity and I like each other well and somewhat warily. Half of our pleasure in each other’s company comes from resisting each other. But Charity and Sally are stitched together with a thousand threads of feeling and shared experience. Each is for the other that one unfailingly understanding and sympathetic fellow-creature that everybody wishes for and many never find. Sid and I are close, but they are closer. (pg. 278)
As well as showing us the value of deep friendship, Crossing to Safety explores how these four friends cope with the challenges and setbacks that confront them during their lives. There is no great melodrama here – no infidelities, no acts of malicious violence, no hatred or vengeance. Their struggles are the stuff of our everyday existence, but no less important or significant as a result. In this respect, Crossing to Safety reminds me a little of John Williams’s Stoner, a recently-reissued book that gives us the story of a man’s seemingly less than remarkable life. Like Stoner, the final section of Crossing to Safety touches on our mortality. It raises questions as to how each of these individuals might manage if their partner were to die. How might the one left behind cope without their soulmate? Could any of us survive if faced with the same fate?
There’s a point in this novel when Charity’s son-in-law, Moe, asks Larry why he hasn’t penned the one book that’s screaming to be written, the story of Sid, Charity, Larry and Sally’s lives. Larry contemplates the following question: ‘How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?’ Well, that’s exactly what Wallace Stegner has done with Crossing to Safety, a book that captured my heart. So fully invested was I in the Morgans and the Langs, I didn’t want their story to end.
Crossing to Safety is published in the UK by Penguin Classics. Source: personal copy.
Thank you for this excellent review. I am really looking forward to reading this.
I’m pretty confident you’ll love this one, Nano! One for your summer break…
Really enjoyed your review. I hadn’t heard of Stegner until Waterstones pushed this novel recently. Interesting you mention Stoner – I was thinking of it as I read your review. This sounds like another novel I should read!
Thank you, Grant. Yes, I came across it in Waterstones, too – I think they included it in one of their Book Club promotions.
It’s good to hear you had the same thought about Stoner, and Stegner’s prose style reminded me of James Salter’s in Light Years. I don’t know if you’ve read the Salter, but if not, that’s also worth a look.
Wonderful review! I’ve got this book on my to-read list, and I’m looking forward to getting round to reading it.
Oh, thank you, Gemma – that’s good to hear! I hope you enjoy it, and I’d love to know what you think when you do get a chance to read it.
Great review, Jacqui. I loved this book and was so pleased to see it on Waterstone’s Book Club list. I was interested to see that you’ve compared his prose style to James Salter’s. I haven’t yet got around to Light Years but will look it out.
Thanks, Susan, and I’m glad you loved this novel, too. I’m very keen to another by Stegner, probably Angle of Repose, as it seems to be the one others rate.
Yes, it’s the luminosity of Stegner’s prose that reminded me of Salter’s Light Years, and that’s another great book!
Oh this sounds right up my street. I love novels where there’s no great melodrama. Fabulous review.
Thank you, Ali! From what I know of your tastes, I think you’d enjoy this one. It is a wonderful classic.
This sounds really interesting – it’s your last paragraph that’s really hooked me. I like books where ‘nothing happens’ although I’ve been put off reading Stoner as it seems very masculine.
Thanks, Naomi. Yes, I really liked the lack of overt melodrama in this book, (although the ending is unforgettable and very moving). These people do face challenges — illness, most notably — but it’s the way they deal with these struggles that pulled me into their lives.
I think there’s more of a gender balance here than in Stoner – all four of the main characters (Sally, Larry, Charity and Sid) are in the foreground!
This is a really lovely post, you’ve examined this book so well and you’ve really made me want to read it. Despite there being no big betrayals it seems a bit like The Good Soldier in the way that ordinary life is made remarkable.
Thank you, Lizzi – that’s great to hear. I haven’t read anything by Ford Madox Ford, but it sounds as if I would enjoy The Good Soldier very much – it’s going on the list! I wondered about trying Parade’s End at the time of the TV adaptation, but didn’t get around to it in the end.
By the way, I had a bit of a splurge on classics in last week’s sale at Blackwells, Charing Cross, and I bought Colette’s Chéri, spurred on by your recent post!
I bought a copy of Parade’s End after seeing the series, but it has sat on my shelf since! I would recommend The Good Soldier though, it’s very good and very interesting. Also lovely hear you bought a book because of my post – I’d love to hear what you think of Cheri.
Ah, thanks! Yes, I’ll let you know how I get on with Cheri. I’m looking forward to trying Colette, although my edition isn’t quite as lovely as your mother’s!
I really like the idea that, based on your commentary, that this book has no melodrama but lots of very complex characters and what seems like subtly complex situations. Lately I have been very appreciative of such books.
Though only in my late forties, I am also at a point where complex friendships, sometimes involving couples, that have lasted 30 years or so, are things that I can relate to.
Thanks for the great commentary on this one.
Yes, that’s very much the case with this novel, Brian; it’s the way in which the two couples deal with the complexities of life’s struggles that pulled me into their lives. Larry, Sally, Charity and Sid all evolve during the course of the book; the characters change and develop, as do the dynamics in their relationships. There’s some excellent character development here. Having said there’s no great melodrama here, I should add that the ending is pretty unforgettable, and deeply moving (but I don’t want to say any more for fear of revealing a specific element of the plot).
Thanks, as ever, for your comments. I really think you’d like this one (especially given your own life experience and the feeling that you would relate to these longstanding friendships). I can’t recommend it highly enough – it’s a superb book!
I really want to read this one now Jacqui, thanks for the review, I’ve put it on my wish list, I still have Stoner to read too, looking forward to both.
Oh, excellent. I’d really like to hear what you think of both of these books, Lindsay (I’m aware we’ve had a brief twitter conversation about Crossing to Safety). I hope you enjoy them.
I have had this on the shelf for years, bought one day at a used book shop. I’ve been meaning to get to it, and I know that I’ll like it given the description.
Great to hear you have this one on your shelf. It’s a very fine book indeed, and I’m glad you like the sound of it.
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Great quotes. It does sound a real achievement to make a good novel of such quiet lives, I can’t fault him for lampshading what he’s done.
The Salter comparison definitely got my attention, and I can see why you make it. I think I may have another Stegner at home to read first, but it definitely sounds like I should be reading him.
Thank you, Max. I marked quite a few quotes as I was reading, but when it came to the write-up, the ones I’ve included here just stood out.
Yes, it’s very compelling novel, and it’s the way in which the two couples deal with the complexities of life’s struggles that hooked me in. That and Stegner’s prose, which just I loved.
I’d be very interested to hear/read your thoughts on Stegner when you do get to him. Angle of Repose is the other one I’ve heard great things about, so that’ll be my next Stegner, I think.
Sounds like a good read. I read Angle of Repose with Richard last year and it is probably safe to say I liked it a lot more than him. It’s a fascinating novel. I like the sound of this and must get around to Stoner which has been on my shelves for a while now.
I’m glad to hear you liked Angle of Repose as I think it’ll be my next Stegner. It’s interesting that you liked it more than Richard; from what I sense of Richard’s tastes, I can see why he might prefer a different style of novel to the Stegner. And if you liked Angle of Repose, then it’s well worth considering Crossing to Safety.
Loved Stoner, although I’ve seen mixed responses to that one, too.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my posts, Seamus; I appreciate it.
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Just followed your Archive link here: I loved this novel too when I read it last year. Never got round to reviewing it – now I don’t need to – !
Ah, thank you. I’m delighted to hear you loved this novel too! One of my highlights from last year’s reading. I must get his Angle of Repose…once I allow myself to buy books again. :)
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