Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Two very different couples are brought together on the University of Wisconsin campus in 1938.  Both men are writers and teaching at the University.  Both of the wives are pregnant but their personalities are very different.  Still they become the best of friends.  Friends that are there for each other through many challenges and many shifts in the balance of success.  Sid and Charity Lang have access to great wealth but they aspire to something more.  Larry and Sally Morgan struggle to find a way to support the life of a writer but find life more joy than difficulty.  It is in many ways a simple gentle story of four lives connected in multiple ways although there are challenges to be met.  For me the strength of this book is in the quality of the writing.  These four are in many ways people you know, people you are, but Stegner has just the right turn of phrase to provide both insight into the way of relationships and an awareness of their mystery. The story ends in 1972 and the reader has to fill in many missing chunks of time but Stegner's writing keeps everything perfectly on track.  I thought it lack the power of Angle of Repose but is missing none of the quality.