by Don Kazak
During Wallace Stegner's last author reading at Kepler's Books & Magazines in 1990, he read from his newly published collected volume of short stories and patiently answered questions from the packed audience. He also revealed some things about his work and the process of writing fiction.
He noted that many of his short stories, and "Crossing to Safety" in particular among his novels, started out from events in his own life and then became fiction. "Don't trust the details," he said of his stories. Instead, he said, trust the feelings that are expressed in his writing.
"Crossing to Safety," his last novel (1987) began as a non-fiction book because Stegner was trying to understand some things about a lifelong relationship he and his wife Mary had had with another couple.
That other couple was Phil and Peg Gray, and the relationship between the two couples was indeed complex, as Jackson Benson describes in his biography of Stegner.
This is the first biography of Stegner, who died in 1993 from injuries he suffered in an auto accident.
Benson, who teaches at San Diego State University, also wrote a noted biography of John Steinbeck, "The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer," almost a decade ago.
This time, Benson had the advantage of getting to know his subject and interviewing him at length over a seven-year period for what were going to be two books on Stegner's life. That plan changed when Stegner, who was 84 at the time, was injured in the auto accident while he was in New Mexico to receive a writing award.
There is a lot to cover in attempting to record the key events of what was an extraordinary life. Benson not only covers all the key points, but he is able to give the reader a sense of what Stegner was feeling at different points.
Stegner published 16 volumes of fiction and 12 of essays and non-fiction in a writing career of more than 50 years. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel "Angle of Repose" in 1972 and a National Book Award in 1977 for his novel "The Spectator Bird."
In addition to the body of his own work, Stegner will be remembered as the founder of the highly regarded Creative Writing Program at Stanford in 1945, a program he taught in until 1971. Ken Kesey, Larry McMurtry, Wendell Berry, Tillie Olsen and Robert McGuane, among others, were students in the program.
Stegner was also a key figure in the environmental movement in the 1960s and beyond, a major influence in the Sierra Club nationally and in the formation of the local Committee for Green Foothills more than 30 years ago. He was also an inspiration in the founding of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in 1972. The district now has more than 41,000 acres preserved, mostly in the foothills.
Despite all the accomplishments and all the recognition, Stegner had his disappointments and was also involved in contentious episodes, both in the Stanford writing program and the environmental movement.
As a novelist, Stegner got labelled as a "Western writer" by the Eastern literary establishment, and it rankled him that "Angle of Repose" was not even reviewed in the New York Times Book Review.
All was not well for Stegner in the Stanford English Department either, as the years went on. There was a question of who would be named director of the writing program in the early 1980s when Stegner's friend, Dick Scowcroft, retired. Stegner wanted departmental colleague Nancy Packer to head the program, but novelist Gilbert Sorrentino was chosen instead.
Stegner was angry enough to ask the department to take his name off the fellowships given to the writers--the writers are known as Stegner fellows--and he was finally talked out of that action and apologies were made. But a bond had been broken, as Benson writes: ". . . the actions of the department still festered in his heart and his feeling for Stanford was never quite the same."
In addition to dealing with academic politics and unruly young writers at Stanford--much has been made of the difficulties between Ken Kesey and Stegner--Stegner was also caught up in the very public storm about the future of the Sierra Club in the late 1960s as one of its national board members. That was the time when David Brower angered Ansel Adams and others at the Sierra Club, with Brower eventually leaving the club to form his new group, Friends of the Earth.
If nothing else, Stegner's biography is a reminder not only of how difficult those times were during the 1960s, but also how involved Stegner was in the world around him, however personally uncomfortable it might have been for him at times.
Stegner's legacy, of course, is the body of work he produced as a writer. But he also made his mark strongly in other ways, as a teacher and an environmentalist, and not least as an example to others. Benson records all of this in a biography that is thoroughly researched and written candidly but with obvious respect and affection.
Stegner had known Ansel Adams since 1945 and was a great admirer of the photographer. When Adams died, Mt. Ansel Adams in Yosemite was dedicated in his memory. Speaking to the crowd that had gathered in Tuolumne Meadows for the dedication, Stegner talked of Adams in words that just as appropriately now fit his own life and sensibilities.
Adams, Stegner said, was known for his sometimes strong public statements on environmental issues, statements that were "the sound of a great heart beating. It was the sound of a great artist speaking his mind on a subject that meant more to him than fame, money or anything in the world except his art and his family. That subject was the integrity and beauty and health of the earth, and the respect that should accompany our use and enjoyment of them."
--Don Kazak
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