Crossing to Safety

Novel by Wallace Stegner

Do you know the difference between literary and commercial fiction? This is how I understand it: literary means the writer isn't famous until they die. Literary means the books you're assigned in English class. Or if you're an English major or teacher, the books you're supposed to like.

That's this book. Maybe you are better informed than I am, but I had never heard of Wallace Stegner before I picked up this book. It was published 25 years ago, and was Stegner's last novel before his death, but he also wrote or compiled 27 other books and numerous short stories. Still doesn't ring a bell? Me either.

I did like this story: it's told from the perspective of 60-year-old author reminiscing on the most important friendship of his life. When he was a poor college professor with a pregnant wife and new to their college town in the 1930's, they were befriended by a very gregarious college professor and his pregnant wife. While there are many such parallels between the couples, the second couple are exorbitantly rich and that sets in motion some of the ups and downs of a friendship spanning multiple decades. Apparently it's somewhat autobiographical (although Stegner himself says all writing is somewhat autobiographical), and the fact that nothing hugely dramatic happens in the story (aside from illnesses and World War II) is commented on by the main character as what makes good, true literature. It's just a story of real people and the intricacies of relationships.

It was very much something that I may have been assigned to read in college. The figurative language is beautiful, the introspection excruciatingly detailed and realistic. The careful blending of perspective and timeline as the main character looks back on events of forty years earlier is masterful. I could write an essay on it. Maybe I just did. But still, I think I like a little more drama, some shockers, some plot twists. Water for Elephants takes place during the Great Depression and is told as a remembrance, but has a little more pizzazz. Maybe I'm just a commercial kind of girl now.