Crossing to Safety
by Wallace Stegner · first published 1987
50% recommend50% neutral
This novel is perfect for anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship, or realized that the majority of their social time is spent with other couples. A great reminder that marriage is a marathon, not a sprint.
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…intentionally oversimplify life. Her characters are not realistic and are completely binary. Everyone is either a superhero or a weasel. This makes for entertaining reading, but not much else. Read "Crossing to Safety" by Wallace Stegner. It is a brautiful book about an intense relationship forged between two couples. It's my favorite thing I've read recently.
on “Ask HN: Good books?” ↗…collection of letters Steinbeck wrote to his editor every day as he was writing East of Eden. It's a fascinating window into the mind of a master deliberately creating a masterpiece. Other favorites: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, In Our Time by Hemingway, The Magus by John Fowles, 100 years of solitude, Moby Dick (perhaps a precursor to all modern fantasy?) Stranger in a Strange Land, and Infinite Jest. I've…
on “Ask HN: What literature do you read?” ↗…the monster's perspective. Sadly he died young in a motorcycle accident, so we didn't get many examples of his approach. Another modern writer that I think he would have approved of is Wallace Stegner. Crossing to Safety and Angle of Repose are both wonderful.
on “Who the Hell Is This Joyce (1928)” ↗…academic poverty in the 1940s and before were forgotten. But if you look back at books about that time--Jacques Barzun's essays in Teacher in America, Ulam's memoirs, parts of Wallace Stegner's novel Crossing to Safety--you'll see that it wasn't an especially secure life, and not always a contented one. I work as a programmer. I am not obsessed with money--a very easy thing to say if you've been comfortably solvent…
on “Thesis Hatement” ↗Good list. Nit: Crossing to Safety is Wallace Stegner
on “Books I Recommend” ↗