Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner.

In the fall, I read Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose, a beautiful and true story of the West and striving.

But then a few weeks ago I read Crossing to Safety and I was deeply moved, affected, and entertained by this book. It takes place in Wisconsin and Vermont during the middle of the 20th Century. It is, on its surface, the story of two young couples—the men are professors at the same college in the beginning and the women easily their intellectual equals—who fall in love with each other one evening during the last few years of the Great Depression. And it moves on from there to explore the meaning of friendship, marriage/love, and the vagaries and tragedies of life.

I should note that when I say they fall in love, it is a deep friendship not a sharing of spouses or some other bit of sexual intrigue.

And, it feels true.

One note, I did find myself jealous of each couple. They live and breath an intellectual life, principally in academia, which is a life I’ve dreamed of living myself. So, I suppose this story hit a lot of buttons for me.