Wallace Stegner’s novels portray the lives and passions of early settlers of the American West. They paint a vivid and eloquent picture of the hardships, frustrations but rewards these hardy people encountered. Stegner manages to capture the beauty and power of the landscape, and weaves this in with human stories that have relevance to all of us in some way. I was very excited when my Mother showed me one of his novels I had not yet read, and dove into it with excitement (I get much of my great reading from her). I’m half way through his Angle of Repose that chronicles the lives of eastern educated pioneers moved west to be miners in California. This novel is wonderful but not as engaging as his Big Rock Candy Mountain which I highly recommend. Stegner’s writing is thought-provoking and engaging, and almost as passionate as my favorite authors Ivan Doig and John Steinbeck who also write about similar subjects.
This is one of my favorite novels and also my favorite book title. How surprising that there exists in mining nomenclature such a beautiful technical term as “Angle of Repose”. I recommend in addition Crossing to Safety.