Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
Novel Conversation’s Book Club – April 2018 Book – Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
Looking back at the lives of our grandparents can sometimes illuminate our own lives, at least that’s what Lyman Ward, a historian and former college professor who’s trying to write about his own grandmother, believes. Through a series of old newspaper articles and letters written by his grandmother, Susan Ward, to Augusta Drake, one of her dearest friends, he tries to recreate what her life was like. Through that process, he learns much about his own perspectives on marriage and the lives people lead.
Susan Ward’s story starts in 1868 when she first meets Augusta Drake, someone Susan seems to almost worship. Throughout her letters, it seems Susan constantly compares her own life and soon-to-be husband Oliver Ward, to Augusta and her husband. Oliver never quite measures up to Susan’s expectations and by way of Susan’s descriptions in the letters, always seems to be the conciliation prize after Augusta married Thomas Moran, another of Susan’s loves. Susan ends up joining Oliver out west and that’s where all their adventures begin.
Susan is a published artist and writer. She chronicles her travels west through drawings and stories, both of which are published back east. She brings “culture and civilization” to the small mining towns they live in and she relishes that role. Oliver participates from the sidelines but never fully invests himself like Susan does. They are very different but in some ways alike.
When tragedy befalls them later in the novel, they each deal with it differently. That they end up staying together until their old age is probably more a testament to the times than their relationship, although there’s some good arguments for either. Without giving away the tragedy or the ending, I really recommend you read the book. It’s a wonderful story with so many different facets to it – it’s really hard to know where to begin.
Wallace Stegner won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel. It’s so well-crafted and his writing style is almost like poetry. If you take the time to savor the words, you will feel yourself transported back to another time, hearing the same sounds and smelling the same scents and odors that Susan does. It really is that good! And what does “angle of repose” mean? Look it up!! Or read the book first!
