Crossing to Safety (Modern Library) (Modern Library Classics)

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This, together with the fact that Larry frequently comments and reflects on life, memory and art, gives the book a complexity without detracting from its being an engaging story about interesting people. My dreams are affected, my relationships are affected, my perception of self is affected, and my writing style and speaking style change – all because of the fumes from this book seepage. Late in the book, the husband of one of Charity and Sid's daughters refers to Sid as being a captive husband, and we are led to see that the husbands are all captive to their wives in some way, Sid from unwillingness to stand against Charity; Larry because his crippled wife, Sally, depends on him. Each is for the other that one unfailingly understanding and sympathetic fellow-creature that everybody wishes for and many never find. I remember how quiet it was, how empty the streets at that hour, how our feet were loud on pavement and then hushed in grass and then crackly in leaves.

I’ve never had the experience of a “couples” friendship like this, setting out on vacations with one another, bonding over shared pregnancies, or struggling with end of life together. As they grow older, they confront the sudden turns and dead ends that inevitably litter the road of life. If you have ever had a friend who lifted you and held you when you would have otherwise fallen, and felt the obligations that accompany such a love, you will recognize that friendship as well.I'd rather spend it on Charity" (what is it about that line that has the reader continue to 'think' about this? They fall into friendship and, for the rest of their lives, through ups and downs, remain deeply bonded. As unlikely as the friendship between the two couples may seem, it may also appear improbable that Sid and Charity are locked together in marriage. I know these people – not just from the outside but because parts of each one are, or have been parts of me, too – at one point or another in my life. While telling this story Wallace gives a sense of space and time like no other author I’ve read before.

Stegner opens with Charity, a wealthy New Englander in the last stages of cancer, bringing the foursome back together for one last hurrah. When we first meet Charity and Sid at the beginning in the small mid-western town, they have two young children with one on the way.As their careers mature, they take different paths, but they spend much of their time together on summer vacations in the small Vermont town where Charity's family has been coming for decades.