Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

For July we are discussing Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

This is a novel based very much on the author's life, a story of the life-long friendship between two couples.

KUED did a documentary on Wallace Stegner, which unfortunately is not available online, but the site for it does have photos and and also transcripts of interviews they did for the documentary.

Here are a few discussion questions to get you thinking before we meet.  Feel free (especially if you can't come) to post your thoughts here.  

1. Given the difference between their upbringings (social class), what is the basis of friendship between these two couples? What does each couple gain from the friendship? Is it an equal or unequal relationship?

2. Have you ever had friends as generous as Sid and Charity Lang? How did Stegner write the pairs of characters so that we would believe Larry and Sally could accept the Langs repeated gifts without inducing shame and guilt?

3. Talk about the nature of the two marriages, how they differ. The Langs' marriage seems to be the one most under the microscope here, the most complicated of the two marriages.

4. Discuss the role of wives in the book. Have wives, especially faculty wives, changed since the 1930s?

5. Larry ruminates on the basis of their friendship with the Langs when they flatter him on his writing, asking on page 18: "Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?" and "Can I think of anyone in my hole life whom I have liked without his first showing signs of liking me?" How do you respond to Larry's questions?

6. In the end, do you feel Charity should have thought more about others, or did she have the right to do things her way?