We didn't come . We came out of affection and family solidarity, as adopted members of the clan, and because we were asked for and expected. From the early days of their acquaintance in Madison, Wisconsin, to the last hours they spend together in Vermont some 34 years later, the relationships Stegner weaves among these four individuals cushion life's memorable moments, adding an exuberant bounce to happy hours and helping to make bad times bearable.
Tenure is the only measure that's true.
According to Charity, it is far better to accede to the establishment, even though it may demand mediocrity, than to risk looking foolish by writing poems. In a narrative framed by flashbacks, Larry Morgan unfolds the story of these friends and their quiet lives. Don't expect a pulsating plot, gratuitous violence, or salacious love scenes in a Stegner novel. The action is understated, but significant, as Stegner focuses on questions of how we live our lives among the people we love, and how we choose to leave them. By the book's closing chapter, when the scene shifts again to the Langs' seemingly idyllic family compound near Vermont's Battell Pond, we know how completely these four cherish each other, and we've seen that the complicated dependencies among these husbands and wives serve the marriages that unite them.