Rating: 
Summary: A semi-autobiography
Review: "Crossing to Safety" is a novel and a semi-autobiographical piece about Wallace Stegner himself, his wife, and the tribulations and blessings that came with their life-long, complex friendship with another couple. In the space of one day, narrator Larry Morgan tells the history of two couples: Larry & Sally Morgan and Sid & Charity Lang. As the story opens, Larry and Sally, now in their late 60s, have arrived at the Lang's Vermont retreat from their home in New Mexico. They have come to see their close friends Sid and Charity, because Charity is dying of cancer. As the Morgans settle in for the night in the guest cabin, Larry, as narrator, takes us back to the beginnings of this great friendship: Madison, Wisconsin, during the Depression. From this point the novel moves between the present day to the past in a series of long, heart warming remembrances. Both Sid and Larry are fiercely ambitious, and each is tied to his wife in complicated ways. Sid is tied to Charity because he needs her domination and over-controlling nature, even though it weakens him. Larry is deeply connected to Sally in part because she has been disabled by polio, creating a bond of dependence that somehow satisfies them both. Throughout the novel, the positives and negatives of the couple's friendship are closely examined, recognizing how they both enrich and in some aspects limit each character. Much of Wallace Stegner's works contain autobiographical aspects of his early family life and childhood. About his novel Crossing To Safety, he says... "I wrote it as sort of a memoir more for Mary [Stegner's wife] and myself than for anything else, and I wasn't at all sure I was ever going to publish it. Those people were our very close friends, and at the same time they had some problems which were very personal; and an honest portrait of them as honest as I could make it... But it was, really, in a way that no book of mine has ever been, an attempt to tell the absolute, unvarnished truth about other people and myself. Inevitably I found myself inventing scenes and suppressing things, and bringing things forward in order to make the story work because I guess my habits are incorrigible; but my intention, at least, was the utter, unvarnished truth... And also, I suppose, I had the mule headed notion that it ought to be possible to make books out of something less than loud sensation. I was trying to make very small noises and to make them thoughtful..."
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(Stegner: Conversations on History and Literature by Wallace Stegner and Richard W. Etulain, xi-xii)
Crossing To Safety by Wallace Stegner
Rating:
Summary: This One Will Take Your Breath Away
Review: Crossing to Safety is an incredible novel, one I highly recommend. The story is simple--two young couples meet and become lifelong friends--but the way it is told is not. Stegner does something magical with the English language, his words are so evocative. After reading one scene, which takes place during a summer rainstorm, I was shocked to look outside my own window to see dry ground, barren branches. What I find amazing about this work is that Stegner is able to convey so much without being overly verbose. Sally, Larry, Sid and Charity meet as young professors and their wives in Madison Wisconsin in the late 30s. Sid and Charity are wealthy, Sally and Larry are not. Larry tells us the story many years later, as all have gathered because Charity is gravely ill. They have returned to the New England family "camp" where much of the narrative takes place. Successes, failures, marital problems, children, travels, careers--its all here, told in a marvelous fashion. I think I fell in love with this novel from the first sentence. If you can, pick it up in the early morning, when the rest of your household is sleeping. Spend some time alone with this novel and Stegner will transport you to another time and place. I highly recommend this remarkable novel.
Rating:
Summary: A charming, interesting book
Review: Albert Camus once said there is more of interest in a long-term love than in a torrid but brief affair. This book, combined with Wallace Stegner's captivating style, makes Camus' observation seem so correct. We have all formed long-term friendships which are the source of some of our greatest satisfactions. They certainly don't resemble the exact characteristics of those in this story, and no friendships are without their conflicts, but it is nice to read the story of two couples who are in good and decent relationships and I was happy to see that such relationships can be the source of such an interesting read.
Rating:
Summary: A definite five star story.
Review: This is a very beautiful story, crafted so obviously and generously with love. Tlhis is the story of two couples, Sid and Charity Lang, and Sally and Larry Morgan, the former, wealthy and generous, the latter, rich only in love. Together, these couples form an unlikely alliance. Their friendship is woven into a story of incredible strength, and it is a friendship that will withstand much sorrow in the form of illness, mental & physical, and long distances. Charity Lang becomes our heroine of sorts, though she is but one of four protagonists. Charity is willful, at times unbearably so, yet mostly lovable, as she forces her indomitable will throughout life on all who know her. Her attempts to mold her husband Sid into correct form and shape is much of the author's way of forming the character of Charity. Suddenly the very worst tragedy of all brings the couples back together after a long separation in a climax of who they all really are, and just how powerful and controlling is Charity's will. I read with gluttony, unable to get enough of this sterling tale. This author's style is fabulously real and deeply moving. Don't miss this one!
Rating:
Summary: Reading Group Highlight
Review: Our book group of 13 ladies has been in agreement on very few books over the year and a half we have been meeting, but we all loved this. The language flows, the people are real and we all cared about them. This is our first Wallace Stegner, but we will be reading Angle of Repose in January. This is a treasure to keep and to share with others.
Rating:
Summary: Crossing to Stegner
Review: I had not read Stegner before. I will be reading him again! I found the start slow at first and in fact had to pick it up several times. Once I persevered, here's what I found: A beautiful and well written book. What I found was a well made novel--both in narrative structure and figurative language. There were no strained metaphors (so common in most modern fiction) and no lack of insight. I found a story of friends, more than that the most rare of friends; two married couples. I say that couples this close are rare for the very same reason that the Morgans and the Langs eventually fall out of close contact. The people we choose to love, to "fuse" our lives together with are ours because no one else would choose them. As much as Sid could not live without Charity, Larry would never choose to live with her. As a result it becomes difficult for Larry and Sally to watch the various strains of Sid and Charity's relationship. And while it may not strain the couple's friendhsip per se, it stretches it a bit. This story does not fall into the predictable. It moves you to tears and laughter and jealousy. How wonderful to have found besides spouses that you love even in the tough times, friends who are more than willing to help see you through the tough times. Don't be put off by the fact that it moves slowly at first, don't be put off by the lack of glamor, drugs and violence. Hopefully, glamor, drugs and violence are not commonplace events in any of your lives. Read instead this book that talks of quiet lives that recognize the need for both sorrowful and "sunny hours" in order to make them beautiful.
Rating: 
Summary: Graceful Stegner
Review: This warm, intimate book appeals to many who might find serious fiction too challenging. It is gracefully written, humane, and emotional without being maudlin. It straddles the fine line between greeting card sentiment and real insight without becoming saccharine. Stegner shows here, as in "Spectator Bird" and "Angle of Repose," his understanding of the ways couples stay together and navigate the emotional terrain of marriage and friendship.
Rating:
Summary: instead, the world has left marks on us
Review: 'Crossing to Safety' is a novel about the intertwined lives of two couples. More generally, it is about the various ways we express the search for meaning, about gradually lost causes, about vulnerability and kindness, about the complicated dependencies of marriage, about coming of age, slowly, over the course of a lifetime. The plot is simple -- two couples meet because the husbands teach for a time at the same campus, and the four become lifelong friends. Although the story spans decades, there are very few dramatic incidents. This lack of external drama may disappoint those who like plots which move steadily forward, driven by significant events and bold action. However that very lack of action and heroism is part of the novel's essence. Our lives are generally prosaic, not epic. Our stories do not end tidily in fifty minute prime-time segments. The narrator speaks to this: "How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these? Where is the high life, the conspicuous waste, the violence, the kinky sex, the death wish? [...] Where are speed, noise, ugliness, everything that makes us ... recognize ourselves in fiction?" From these quiet lives, Stegner vividly sketches the emotional landscape in which the characters move, making for all its lack of fireworks a surprisingly compelling story. The book has been praised as a wonderful and uplifting portrayal of friendship developed over many years. That might sound a little maudlin or simplistic on the face of it, but it does not come across that way at all. It is difficult to summarize the philosophical tone of the novel. It is at the same time wry, realistic, and sympathetic, generally optimistic about our native toughness and the possibility of grace, and ambivalent about questions of grand purpose. In fact, the story is marked from the beginning with undertones of retrospective melancholy. "[We meant to] leave a mark on the world. Instead the world has left marks on us." In addition to evoking a finely shaded spectrum of emotions, the book is beautifully written. In grade school writing classes we were told to "show, don't tell", but the author both shows and tells with consummate skill. This book strikes me as being the distillation of a lifetime of experience by an acutely sensitive and intelligent writer and a profoundly decent human being. It feels like Wallace Stegner's carefully considered gift to us, and is well worth giving, in turn.
Rating:
Summary: The heartbreaking, and heartwarming beuty of friends
Review: This seemingly melodramtic novel was a hear catching story on the value and truism of real, true. life-long frineds. The kind that we all hope to have, and hope to be one day in our later lives. The story was endearing, captivating, the author made the characters very symbolistic as well as emotionally drawing. I identified with the story and the people in it. I laughed, I cried, I read it in two days. It explored the value of friendship mixed with the realism that though we might not have time to see our real friends for months, years, decades.. the seed of friendship never dies and can be rekindled with a simple hello. I would read this book several times over and give it to anyone I consider a true and forever friend.
Rating:
Summary: Nice follow up but I still love "Angle of Repose"
Review: Crossing to Safety is a nice follow up to Angle of Repose although lacking the depth and detail of Stegner's prize winning work. The prose is fairly tight with vivid images, interesting plot and detailed character portrayal. Substantial but again, just love 'Angle'! read it. you'll definitely walk away satisfied.
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