I recently returned from a unique trip to one of my favorite places, Asheville, North Carolina. Despite all of the obstacles, my wife Cindy and I took a road trip to get there and helped our oldest son Jason pack up both his art studio and the apartment he shares with his fiance as they made plans moving to a new locale to attend graduate school in the Fall. The trip doubled as a vacation, though with lots of constraints.
Here's a picture as we crossed the border into Tennessee and checked out their wonderful Welcome Center a few miles before we crossed into North Carolina through local mountains:
After a 3 day ride to Asheville, we settled in at our Airbnb in West Asheville and started planning the month. Both Cindy and I had decided to do some reading during our stay and I'd brought along a couple books to read, but was open to getting more. Early on, Jason took me to one of the few bookstores that was open during this pandemic period, Mr. K's, which sells used books and CDs. The title of this post mentions connecting and here we go. In early June, A.O. Scott published a wonderful profile about the writer Wallace Stegner, introducing him as a writer who had profiled the American West and influenced other writers, notably one of my favorites, Robert Stone. So, in Mr. K's, I went looking for a book by Stegner and found Crossing to Safety.
Later in the month, I began reading the book and brought it back with me to Massachusetts. The novel was simply superb. Stegner published the novel late in his long career, in 1987, but the writing still felt fresh and contemporary. In the book, we meet a young couple, Larry and Sally Morgan, who are beginning a new life in Wisconsin, where Larry has gained a teaching position in the English department. Larry is also a writer and is in the early stages of getting his stories published. They meet another young couple, Sid and Charity Lang, and the two couples find that rare experience of meeting people with whom they connect very well. Stegner writes the book from Larry's point of view and we bounce between these early scenes and others that take place some 40 years later, but the shifts aren't difficult to follow and we gradually learn so much about each of these characters and how their lives are intertwined.
I can heartily recommend the book to virtually anybody who enjoys well written prose and deep character development. But my own connection was deeper than that. The novel reminded me of why I fell in love with both reading and writing, and the aspirations many of us have when we are young to make a mark in the world and do things that matter. In this novel, all of the characters wrestle with what they want and could be and we get to see these perspectives at multiple points in their lives. There's also a remarkable chapter where all four of them journey to Florence during a period when Larry has a sabbatical and hopes to take this time to write a novel, yet they also all take some time to see the country and gain unique experiences in the Tuscan countryside. The novel also speaks to the present moment -- the year of the pandemic -- in a sense as one of the characters falls victim to a disease common to this period, polio, and we see how this changes the lives for all of the characters.
Noting the theme of connections, the article I read in June led to my selection of this book in July at Mr. K's and then I connected deeply with this novel during the past few weeks. Crossing to Safety is a powerful story and quite inspiring as well. It serves as a reminder to remember our dreams and what we truly value, both in our worldly or creative goals and in our relationships, and then act upon them while we still can. I look forward to reading more of Wallace Stegner's works, but he also has pushed me to carefully consider my own way forward as I continue to wrestle with life's challenges during a time of transition.
Here's a glimpse of a rainbow that we encountered one day when we were returning to Asheville during a rainstorm, one of many inspiring moments during this one month vacation.