New Releases by Wallace Stegner

Margaret Stuart, the proud wife of a prosperous Iowa farmer, sets high standards for herself and others. Happy in her marriage, she tries to look the other way when her genial husband, Alec, takes to the bottle. When Elspeth, Margaret''s sister, comes to live with them, the young woman is immediately captivated by the beauty and vitality of the farm, and by the affection she receives from those around her. But as summer turns into fall, and the friendship between Alec and Elspeth deepens, Margaret finds her spirit tested by a series of events that seem as cruel and inevitable as the endless prairie winters. Long out of print, Remebering Laughter (1937) marked Wallace Stegner''s brilliant literary debut.

Sabrina Castro, an attractive woman with a strong New England heritage, is married to a wealthy, older California physician who no longer fulfills her dreams. An almost accidental misstep leads her down the slow descent of moral disintegration, until there is no place for her to go but up and out. How Sabrina comes to terms with her life is the theme of this absorbing personal drama, played out against the background of an old Peninsula estate where her mother lives among her servants, her memories of Boston, and her treasured family archives. A Shooting Star displays the storytelling powers that Wallace Stagner''s fans have enjoyed for more than half a century.

Through his work for the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society and his service as special assistant to the Secretary of the interior, Stegner contributed substantially to the emergence and development of the environmental movement.

Joe Allston, the retired literary agent of Stegner''s National Book Award-winning novel, The Spectator Bird, returns in this disquieting and keenly observed novel. Scarred by the senseless death of their son and baffled by the engulfing chaos of the 1960s, Allston and his wife, Ruth, have left the coast for a California retreat. And although their new home looks like Eden, it also has serpents: Jim Peck, a messianic exponent of drugs, yoga, and sex; and Marian Catlin, an attractive young woman whose otherworldly innocence is far more appealing—and far more dangerous.

In a literary career spanning more than fifty years, Wallace Stegner, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, has created a remarkable record of the history and culture of twentieth-century America. These thirty-one stories demonstrate why he is acclaimed as one of America''s master storytellers. Here are tales of young love and older wisdom; of the order and consistency of the natural world and the chaos, contradictions, and also continuities of the human being. There is sweet love in a berry patch, there are bittersweet reunions, trials, and tests of manhood and friendship, and the sometimes foolish and impractical yet noble dreams of man. Each of these stories embody some of the best virtues and values to be found in contemporary fiction.

In this letter to his former editor William Decker, also a U.S. western writer, and his wife, Stegner remarks on his activities of the previous year, which include book tours of his novel Crossing to Safety.

A passionate work about the fragile and arid West that Stegner loves

People are everywhere and in trouble whatever they are. It is not only amenity , not only quality of living or supply of raw materials or open space that we must fight for. There is even more at stake now - survival of this civilization, perhaps even survival of the living world. And it is later than we think.

Tracing North American Exploration from Balboa to Lewis and Clark, Devoto tells in a classic fashion how the drama of discovery defined the American nation. The Course of Empire is the third volume in historian Bernard Devotoʹs monumental trilogy of the West. Entertaining and incisive, this is the dramatic story of three hundred years of exploration of North America leading up to 1805.

How the Saskatchewan-Montana prairie country looked a generation ago, and what it meant to a youngster who lived there.