Crossing to Safety

Wuthering Bites Book Club Review at a Glance

What We Said

This was the second book written by Wallace Stegner read by our book club (see Angle of Repose). It is a novel filled with good characters and not much plot. The story is of a lifetime friendship, and perhaps the reader needs to be mature to understand and appreciate this book. Our book club had a good discussion regarding the strong (can you say control-freak?) female character, the relationships between husband/wife and friends both in the book and also our own experiences. Also, it raised the subject of matriarchal families and strong women and their roles in society and our lives. Another good topic, since this book is based on Wallace Stegner’s life and friendships, is what he changed about the characters for the book and why. It is an excellent book and highly recommended, especially to fans of Wallace Stegner.
-Sue

Megan Day Gray Paterson-Brown, 9/17/2003    A, excellent, *****
The first sentence of "Crossing to Safety" is a tribute to Wallace Stegner's remarkable talent as a master wordsmith -- he talks of waking up from a nap as "a trout rising through concentric rings to the water's surface" -- and the reader is drawn into the scene along side the narrator with an immediacy which is both poignant and palpable. The narrator of this highly biographical account asks "how can I make a novel of lives as quiet as these? Where is the drama, the sex, the violence?" The beauty of this novel is exactly that it doesn't rely on a sensationalist plot to capture the reader's attention -- rather, the prose is so honest and evocative and the characters so heart-wrenchingly human and true to life, the story evolves through us as readers. Stegner makes us realize that even our own lives (ordinary as they may be) carry the seeds of great drama -- the hope and the anguish, the joy and the despair -- reflected through the lifetime of four people and two couples' journey through a friendship spanning decades of family and career. In the end it is a tribute to friendship, and as he says at one point after a reunion following a distancing in the friendship, "I don't know if I ever told them or if they ever knew how much I loved them -- just in case, I tell them now.." One gets the sense that this book was a final, personal conversation for Stegner, and we as readers can only be grateful that he lets us listen in; as eavesdroppers we are reminded of the very tender and complicated tapestry of friendship, and how it ultimately reflects our own potential for the debased and the divine.
Inspired food accompaniment:   There is a central dinner party that "changed our lives" in which they serve duck a'l'orange (I think?) or was it coq-a-vin...something like that, with a nice old Bordeaux, and classical poetry and music
Other suggested books/authors:    Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

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Wallace Stegner was born on February 18, 1909, in Lake Mills, Iowa. He is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for Angle of Repose and the National Book Award in 1977 for The Spectator Bird. Three of his short stories stories have won O.Henry prizes, and in 1980 he received the Robert Kirsch Award from the Los Angeles Times for his lifetime literary achievements.
Long respected as a teacher of writing, Mr. Stegner taught at universities including Wisconsin, Harvard, and for many years, Stanford, where he founded and directed the writing program that has had a profound effect upon contemporary American fiction. He was twice a Guggenheim Fellow and a Senior Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was a member of the National Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• Remembering Laughter
• The Big Rock Candy Mountain
• Joe Hill
• All the Little Live Things
• A Shooting Star
• The Spectator Bird
• Recapitulation
• Crossing to Safety
• Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
• Angle of Repose
• Wolf Willow
• Sound of Mountain Water
• The Uneasy Chair: A Biography of Vernard DeVoto
• Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West

From the Publisher

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.

The character of Larry Morgan says early in Crossing to Safety, "I never heard of anybody's life but ours being changed by a dinner party." Inspired by this novel of friendship, here are a few recipes to create an unforgettable evening of your own. More menus and recipes

Mussels with Tomatoes, Jalapeno and Tequila - my husband's favorite appetizer
Green Beans With Lemon-Infused Olive Oil - a simple but elegant side
Seared Salmon - a spicy way to prepare salmon
Fudgy Chocolate Sauce - a perfect end to a perfect dinner