Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

[Mustang]

Stegner was an environmentalist and naturalist as well as a writer of fiction and nonfiction who wrote his first book back in the 1930s. He was awarded both a Pulitzer Prize (Angle of Repose, 1971) and a National Book Award (Spectator Bird, 1976) in the 1970s. Crossing to Safety was published in 1987.

Crossing to Safety is the third book of Stegner's I've read. It's about the lifelong friendship of two married couples who first meet at a Wisconsin college shortly after the election of FDR. Their story continues into the 1970s when they come back together in Vermont after living in different parts of the country for several years.

What's written below is from Goodreads. The books is 335 pages and has an overall average Goodreads rating of 4.16 which is pretty remarkable considering it's been rated by over 18,000 people. I gave it a 5.

Called a “magnificently crafted story . . . brimming with wisdom” by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13637023-crossing-to-safety