Crossing to Safety

** spoiler alert ** Really a 4.5, had to take .5 star off because I did not care for the ending. It was a beautiful book until then.

I read this for book club this past month, and loved it. We read a variety of books for our book club, and everyone agreed that the writing in this book was exceptional. Stegner is skilled at seamlessly telling a story between places and times without giving the reader whiplash, at describing location in a way that allows the reader to 'visit' and understand, and in developing characaters that are real and relatable and complex. I became invested in the characters and the story, and this will be a book I keep to re-read in the future.

"In that fine place, in the ripened Indian summer weather, those two once again choose us. In circumstances where smaller spirits might let envy corrode liking, they declare their generous pleasure in our company and our good luck. What we felt last night when we fell into a laughing bearhug and fused our frosty breaths outside their door, we feel again on this placid hill. We have been invited into their lives, from which we will never be evicted, or evict ourselves." This is a luscious, vibrant, and evocative story about two couples, Larry & Sally and Charity & Sid, who meet at a dinner party one fateful night and become lifelong friends forevermore, there for each other through all the trials and triumphs of life. They are first tethered by Larry and Sid's shared professions as English professors at a Wisconsin college, and Sally and Charity's parallel pregnancies. And although the universe and time give them ample opportunity and chances over the following decades to drift apart, fight with each other, be jealous of one another, surpass one another in accomplishment, status or rank, it is by sheer willpower that they choose time and time again to remember the sheer joy and happiness they shared one magical summer in a small lake town in Vermont, and come back to each other as best friends always do. There are some absolutely epic reviews for this book, my favorites by Kevin, Jim, Steve, and Will. All of them do a superb job at summarizing the plot, quoting all the best quotes, and praising Stegner for writing the most beautiful and intimate book in the final chapter of his life. So what can I, a 28 yr old single woman, add that hasn't already been said? In a less eloquent manner, I guess I'll contribute that throughout the novel, I was so so so in love with Sid. How does one read this book and not love him - not want to shelter him from all the responsibility and judgment of the world and just let him live like the disciple of Thoreau and Emerson that he always dreamed of being? He's so dreamy. Listen to Larry, our narrator, describe the moment when saw Sid at the infamous dinner party: "But Sidney Lang, he overwhelmed the sight. He wore an embroidered shirt that I thought might be Greek or Albanian or Jugoslav, but that might have come from Mexico, Guatemala, North Africa or some tribal culture in the Caucasus. And dress was the least part of his transformation. Something had enlarged and altered him. If this had happened in recent years, I would be compelled toward images of Clark What's-His-Name throwing off his glasses and business suit and emerging in his cape as Superman. This English instructor in his Balkan or whatever it was shirt, standing by his beautiful wife and crushing the hands of his guests, was by Michelangelo out of Carrara, a giant evoked from the rock." Was anyone else picturing him as a young Paul Newman with blonde-ish hair and ocean blue eyes? No? Just me? Okay. But next time you read or re-read Crossing to Safety, imagine Sid as Paul Newman and I swear you'll fall in love with him too. There's so much to love about this novel, the wonderful narrative, the lyrical prose, the stunning descriptions of nature. But I love Sid most of all. And, if you ask me, that's really what this book is about. It's about Larry and Sid's beautiful friendship, the most pure and perfect form of friendship and solidarity that can exist between two men who walk through life together. My favorite scenes were the ones where Larry and Sid were alone, being honest and vulnerable with each other in a way, I imagine, that is difficult for men from that era. Near the end, Larry says that, being women, Charity and Sally are better friends and know each other more intimately than him and Sid do. I don't know, I think Larry ultimately underestimated the importance of his presence in Sid's life. Sally knew, Charity knew how much Sid valued their friendship, and how much he would need him and lean on him in the end. But who could have predicted that the wave of emotion Larry felt for Sid on the second day of their knowing each other would carry them through their entire lives. "I have become aware of unexpected tensions in [Charity and Sid's] relationship, and to my own surprise have begun to feel a little protective of a man whom only last evening I thought the luckiest and most enviable man alive." All of these characters are so entirely human. I feel like by turning the final page I'm leaving behind some very old friends. I also feel like I'm all emotional and not doing justice to this book or the characters. I could write a whole thesis paper on Charity, feminism, and the gender roles of men and women in post-depression/post-war America. There's not a lot of plot twists or drama for me to entice you with. I'm afraid if I reveal any more details, I'll have told you the 5 basic plot points this story hits. I'm not very good at essay-like book reviews either, so I've linked some excellent ones above. So, here's me, the latest in a long line of Wallace Stegner admirers (but not the last), telling you to read this book if you haven't. Buy a physical copy so you can dog ear the pages, underline and write in the margins. Take it on vacation, read it at the beach, by the pool, or on a hammock near the lake. It's wonderfully hopeful and melancholy all at once. Enjoy.

Really well written and intriguing story. So many of Stegner’s passages made me stop and read them over again, just so I could take in the breadth and beauty of them.

There are some books that seem to have tiny leaks in their spines and covers and pages and release almost unnoticeable misty, smoky particles of their story – well not so much their story but the mood that is created by the story – out into the “real” world. And when reading these books you find – or at least I find (I should shift my point of reference to me not you) that I am seeing things in my daily routine through a sort of cloud that at first I don’t recognize but then suddenly it dawns on me that it’s from the book I’m reading! My dreams are affected, my relationships are affected, my perception of self is affected, and my writing style and speaking style change – all because of the fumes from this book seepage. And Crossing to Safety has seepage. This is a book about a lifestyle that I really can’t relate to. But yet now I’ve been to these well orchestrated family picnics at Battell Pond, the Vermont compound belonging to Charity Lang’s family. I’ve ridden in the back of the Marmon with the coolers full of steaks for the grills. And I walked the hundred-mile back roads behind the horse named Wizard wondering if there were two stashes of tea in his pack. I even went to Florence back when you could just waltz into the Uffizi without standing in hour-long lines constantly being approached by ‘brella salesmen. I spent time in an iron lung with my dearest friend by my side assuring me that life was worth living even though I wished it was over. But most of all – what this gaseous cloud of literary filter did for me - was to confirm that good and bad make the whole; that friends, husbands, children and oh yes! don’t forget myself – all can have insufferable habits, be full of faults, clearly be imperfect – but without these “bad” qualities – they would not be the people we love. Here’s the quote from the book that illustrates this best: After spending a lovely day in the Tuscan countryside that ends with rescuing an Italian worker from a horrible accident and transporting him back to his village with a crushed, bleeding hand, Larry asks Sally, “When you remember today, what will you remember best, the spring countryside, and the company of friends, or Piero’s Christ and that workman with the mangled hand?” She thought a minute. “All of it,” she said. “it wouldn’t be complete or real if you left out any part of it, would it?” “Go to the head of the class,” I said. This is a move-to-the-top-of your-list book!