“Survival, it is called. Often it is accidental, sometimes it is engineered by creatures or forces that we have no conception of, always it is temporary.” And how beautiful that temporary survival is. Crossing to Safety tells a profound story of friendship and hardship as two couples struggle to survive. And it is definitely a survival worth reading about. I can commend a lot about this story, but here are some of the highlights.
First I loved Stegner’s impeccable sense of place. One of the main settings is Madison, Wisconsin. In Madison–back when you could still drive down State Street–Larry Morgan and his wife Sally face the challenges of professional life for the first time. There they meet their lifelong friends, the Lang’s, who help them explore Lake Manona and force them to take long walks in the cool Midwestern fall. Stegner skillfully highlights Madison’s ironic power; it’s here, in this small city, Midwestern dairy farmers would study under the world’s best and brightest without even leaving the state. Having spent quite a bit of time in Madison, I think he nailed it. Overall I deeply enjoyed my journey back between the lakes with these new companions.
Also I profoundly appreciated Stegner’s portrayal of friendship. CS Lewis in the Four Loves said, “In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company.” Stegner captures Lewis’s idea of grace in friendship through Larry and Sid, the protagonists of Crossing to Safety. Larry admires Sid’s natural grace and powerful presence, and mutually Sid admires Larry’s genuine artistic genius in writing. But they both think that they don’t deserve the other’s friendship. Fundamentally they feel that grace is the foundation of their friendship, and it’s this grace which unites them till the end.
Last I appreciated how Crossing to Safety wrestled with the most difficult questions of life. For instance, near the end of the novel, Larry glimpses his disabled wife, Sally, from a distance. She has braces on her legs and can barely walk, but she is hobbling after her terminally ill best friend trying to help. This image outrages Larry, and he reflects on what he is angry at,
“at it, at fate, at the miserable failure of the law of nature to conform to the dream of man: at what living had done to the woman my life was fused with, what her life had been and was.”
The author expresses how he must have felt years before as he nursed his own mother while she lay dying of cancer. Stegner had risen from poor nomad to distinguished literary hero. But no amount of literary success could assuage the cruel ache of his temporary survival.
For Christians, Stegner’s written rage is a gift. We have spent too much time reading sanitized Christian fiction, cheering for Kirk Cameron and hanging old Thomas Kincaid’s. Stegner might not have had all the answers but at least he hated the enemy.
Overall I loved Crossing to Safety. It was compelling and provocative, and I would recommend it to anyone.