Wallace Stegner
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner is a semi-autobiographical novel about a four decades long friendship of two couples who meet during the Depression. Larry and Sally Morgan have just moved to Madison where Larry is hired to teach in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin. They meet Sid Lang, also teaching in the Department of English, and his wife, Charity. The two couples bond right away and sustain an enduring friendship.
The narrative unfolds through the first-person voice of Larry Morgan. It opens forty years after their first meeting. Larry and Sally have returned to Battell Pond, the Langs family compound in Vermont where all share many wonderful memories. The Morgans have been summoned there by Charity who is anxious to gather friends, children, and grandchildren for a final grand gesture in the form of a picnic. Predictably, the inexorable force of time has brought about change; things are not as they once were. Charity is dying of cancer; Sally is paralyzed from the waist down having contracted polio. From this opening, Larry circles back to the beginning four decades earlier to describe this life-long friendship. Most of the novel is in the form of an extended flashback. It concludes by circling back to the beginning as Charity is swept off to hospital to die.
As the narrator, Larry assumes the role of an observer. He describes in detail an idyllic life of parties, picnics, late night walks, literary conversations, the challenges of job security in academia, and the logistics of writing. The wealthy Langs with their extended family embrace the Morgans who have no family. They offer support—financial and otherwise—whenever needed. Together, the couples form a community of mutual respect, support, and unconditional love.
Stegner’s writing is vivid and engaging. His attention to detail in describing the flora and fauna of landscape is grounded in an appreciation of the beauty and bounty to be found in nature. His characters are true to life, particularly Charity whose personality and sheer force of will garners most of the attention.
This is a quiet, meditative novel about the vitality and energy of youth; lifelong friendships; aging; coping with health issues; tolerance; compassion; love; loyalty; loss; and the meaning of community. It is about looking back on one’s life through the prism of old age. The novel’s title, taken from a Robert Frost poem, suggests that while time depletes all things, there are certain memories that warm our hearts, that we continue to cherish, and that we absolutely refuse to give up.