Welcome to R&W’s next 2026 read: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. In this episode, Rhea and Shari discuss the powerful beauty they see already this story of the mundane that makes both marriage and friendship lasting and gold. They talk about Stegner’s great influence on the American literary canon—both through his own work, and his teaching of those literary giants who followed him, Shari’s personal favorite being Wendell Berry. They spend a long time talking about the 1st person long-view narrator, and the effect it has our view of the story itself, the characters, and the events being narrated. They talk about the ways they see the themes of the story: marriage, friendship, and vocation, already being expressed and given foundation in these early chapters. And they wonder how all three will survive and thrive over the course of the decades to follow.

Below is a link to Rhea’s reading guide for Crossing to Safety. Please do check it out. She has some great stuff in it!

Also, here is the full poem by Robert Frost that inspired Crossing to Safety’s title:

I Could Give All To Time

– A Poem by Robert Frost

To Time it never seems that he is braveTo set himself against the peaks of snowTo lay them level with the running wave,Nor is he overjoyed when they lie low,But only grave, contemplative and grave.

What now is inland shall be ocean isle,Then eddies playing round a sunken reefLike the curl at the corner of a smile;And I could share Time’s lack of joy or griefAt such a planetary change of style.

I could give all to Time except – exceptWhat I myself have held. But why declareThe things forbidden that while the Customs sleptI have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,And what I would not part with I have kept.

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