Wallace Stegner

by Benson, Jackson J.

• ISBN13: 9780803225374
• ISBN10: 0803225377
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-01
• Publisher: Bison Books

Summary

In a career spanning more than fifty years, Wallace Stegner (190993) emerged as the greatest contemporary author of the American Westwriting more than two dozen works of history, biography, essays, and fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winningAngle of Reposeand the bestsellingCrossing to Safety. Jackson J. Benson'sWallace Stegner: His Life and Workis the first full-dress biography of this celebrated "Dean of Western Writers." Drawing on nearly ten years of research and unlimited access to Stegner's letters and personal files, Benson traces the trajectory of Wallace Stegner's life from his birth on his grandfather's Iowa farm to his prominence as an award-winning writer, critic, historian, environmental activist, and teacher, and as founder of Stanford's creative writing program. But Benson's book is as much a consideration of Stegner's literary legacy as it is a retelling of his life. His critical reassessment of the entire body of Stegner's work argues convincingly for his subject's place in the literary canonnot merely as a "regional" Western writer but straightforwardly as one of the great American writers of the twentieth century.

Author Biography

Jackson J. Benson is a professor of English emeritus at San Diego State University. He is the author of several books, including The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer, The Ox-Bow Man: A Biography of Walter Van Tilburg Clark, and most recently, Under the Big Sky: A Biography of A. B. Guthrie Jr. (Nebraska 2009).

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
List of Illustrations	p. xvii
Introduction: Against the Grain-A Heritage of Integrity	p. 1
The Last Homestead Frontier: A Prairie Childhood	p. 16
From Primitive to Intellectual: The Education of Wallace Stegner	p. 39
From Student to Professor: The Further Education of Wallace Stegner	p. 54
Becoming a Novelist: Write a Novel and Win a Prize	p. 68
Accomplished Writer, Harvard Teacher, and Friend to the Famous: What More Do You Need?	p. 83
Hard Work at Harvard: Climbing the Big Rock Candy Mountain	p. 99
Looking Back at the West From Cambridge	p. 116
From the Fight Against Rugged Individualism to the Fight Against Prejudice and Racism	p. 132
Back to Fiction, On to Stanford	p. 151
Abandoning the Novel and Embracing the Short Story	p. 171
From Short Story Writer to Environmentalist	p. 192
To the Barricades for the Environment	p. 211
Travel, Travel Literature, and the Search for Narrative Voice	p. 233
An All-Star Cast	p. 248
The Struggle to Locate Oneself	p. 267
Historian and "Contemporary"	p. 290
Trouble in the Sixties	p. 311
A New Life	p. 333
The Pulitzer and Beyond	p. 344
Back to Biography and Another Prizewinning Novel	p. 364
The Past That Comes Back to Haunt Us	p. 381
Crossing to Safety	p. 396
Giving all to Time	p. 412
Notes and Documentation	p. 423
Index	p. 457
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