Want to learn the ideas in Crossing To Safety better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of Crossing To Safety by Wallace Stegner here.

Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.

Video Summaries of Crossing To Safety

We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on Crossing To Safety, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Wallace Stegner.

1-Page Summary of Crossing To Safety

Overall Summary

Crossing to Safety is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Wallace Stegner. It’s set in the late 20th century and tells the story of Larry Morgan, an aging academic whose life has been filled with compromise. In flashbacks that take place on a single day, we learn about his youth as well as how he came to be who he is today through his interactions with two other couples: Charity Lang and Sidney Lang (who are both academics) and Sally Morgan and Larry himself (who are married).

Larry reminisces about his early life in Madison, where he struggled to find a job. He was also trying to finish his first novel that he wrote while living in a small, dingy basement apartment with Sally and their soon-to-be born child. Larry had to fight for an extended teaching position with the college staff so they could support themselves. Luckily, Larry met Sid and Charity at this time who became close friends of theirs; both couples were expecting children around the same time too. Although they came from different backgrounds (poor vs wealthy), all four shared interests in humanistic pursuits like writing and spirituality which helped them bond over time as they dealt with existential stresses together.

The Langs quickly befriend the Morgans in Madison. The Langs introduce the Morgans to other academics, which helps Larry build a network and gain more job security. Meanwhile, Charity clashes with Sid over the likelihood of him getting tenure; she deems it necessary for them to integrate smoothly into their academic community. Meanwhile, Sid’s passion moves outside of academia into poetry writing; he eventually feels that they have enough money to detach from careerism.

The tensions in the couple’s relationships are a core motif in the novel. These conflicts grow more complicated through each successive flashback, and they weave through and strengthen their narrative threads. Larry works on his writing passion while trying to secure tenure at his university and dealing with familial sicknesses and disabilities. Sally develops polio, which slowly deteriorates her health over time, challenging Larry’s expectation for a life of creative labor. Charity grows upset at Sid’s poetic meditations because he hasn’t shown any concrete work that would make it possible for him to have another job as well as pursue poetry.

Larry only partially succeeds at becoming a successful novelist, and he does so late in life. Sid spends his life trying to get tenure writing articles that he doesn’t care about, but it’s all because of Charity. The couple is an ironic one: They are unsuccessful from the perspective of American literature because they don’t make much progress despite their idealist beginnings. The Langs remain unstable and alienated, even from each other, unable to conceive of a life that isn’t driven by the accumulation of capital. The Morgans never transcend their core struggle to find a community they naturally resonate with or find true satisfaction in their work.

Stegner’s novel is a reaction against pre-Depression literature that was formulaic and simple. It also explores the historicist character study of people who are complex and mysterious, especially because they’re described through the biased lens of the protagonist. Stegner offers an improvisational model for how human beings interact with each other over time, despite their failures. Scholars have questioned whether real narrative should correspond to plot in order to be compelling.

Part 1, Chapter 1

Larry and Sally are husband and wife. Larry is a former academic who has taken care of his disabled wife for many years, but now he’s taking a walk around the house to get some fresh air. He thinks about how small his life is compared to the bigger picture in nature, which could last forever.