Angle of Repose by
Wallace Stegner
New York: Penguin Books, 1971
Angle of Repose, winner of the 1972 Pulitzer prize for fiction, is the story of Susan Ward, a sophisticated Easterner, who settles in the West to be with her husband who seeks his fortune in a variety of Western venues. Set in the late nineteenth century, Susan faces a series of disappointments as she is forced to deal with the consequences of her husband's failed business ventures. Easterners who chose life in the West faced risky, difficult lives. Susan often questions whether her life of uncertainty is worth the comfort and culture of the East she gave up when she moved west.
The book is of particular interest to Idaho readers because it highlights many of the early efforts to irrigate the Treasure Valley. There is even a reference to Arrow Rock dam, which at the time of its completion was the highest dam in the world.
The story is narrated by retired historian Lyman Ward. Susan is his grandmother, and Lyman spends considerable time researching her biography. The novel frequently moves between Susan's past and Lyman's present as the disabled historian is forced to confront his own failures and disappointments. As such, the book provides an interesting commentary on how one's own family history affects life in the present.Comments
Angle of Repose is a renowned book of fiction, and is more likely to be assigned in a class on American literature than a course on American history. However, the book, in addition to its fascinating insights on life in early Idaho, provides wonderful commentary on the difficult trials and choices faced by the people who settled the West in the late nineteenth century.
Reading Level: 6.9
Interest Level: Young Adult
568 pagesSupports the following Instructional Objectives:
Trace the exploration and settlement of the West
Excerpt
As a practitioner of hindsight, I know that Grandfather was trying to do, by personal initiative and with the financial resources of a small and struggling corporation, what only the immense power of the federal government ultimately proved able to do. That does not mean he was foolish or mistaken. He was premature. His clock was set on pioneer time. He met trains that had not yet arrived, he waited on platforms that hadn't yet been built, besides tracks that might never be laid. Like many another Western pioneer, he had heard the clock of history strike, and counted the strokes wrong. Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.
When they moved to the canyon camp, for example, they expected to stay only through the summer. They stayed five years.
Naturally, I never saw the camp in Boise Canyon. Before I was old enough to hear about it, it was three hundred feet under water. Just as well. Abandoned in its gulch, its garden gone to weeds, its fences down, its ditches drifted full, its windows out, its bridge no more than broken cables trailing in the creek, every nail and fencepost tufted with the wool of passing sheep bands, it would look like failure and lost cause. (page 382)Historical Fiction and Idaho US History Curriculum
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