Rereading Stegner
August 12, 2011
There’s a nice (repeat) post by Nichole Bernier at Beyond the Margins, about Wallace Stegner and his wife, Mary. She mentions that Stegner is “best known for his environmental writing, which has influenced generations of conservationists, and for his novel Angle of Repose (which won the Pulitzer in 1972), as well as his creative writing program at Stanford University.” If so, it’s a shame that his other novels aren’t more widely read today. Nichole says she is currently rereading All the Little Live Things, one of my favorites, in which he makes the California foothills teem with life—human, animal, vegetable, spiritual.
The News from Gridleyville 
August 12, 2011 at 10:59 am
Thank you for the mention of my piece. I agree, it’s a shame he’s not more widely read today—a problem in his own day too, as he was routinely overlooked by book reviewers and award committees. I adore All the Little Live Things because it feels like such a trial run at Crossing to Safety, but also because I adore his wicked humor about the motorcyclist-squatter. That is hilarious dry writing that I’d put up against the best of McPhee.
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