Status Updates From Crossing to Safety

Didn’t like it

"There is a revisionist theory... that says we hate worst those who have done the most for us. According to this belittling and demeaning theory, gratitude is a festering sore. Maybe it is, if it's insisted upon. But instead of insisting on gratitude, the Langs insisted that their generosity was selfish, so how could we dislike them for it?"

So many ways I see myself in these characters (and so many ways I do not as well).

SMALL complaint: I feel he had the kids’ ages wrong in the timeline for when they were in Florence. How could Hallie have been 14 but Lang was in college? And if Hallie was 14, how could Barney have been in grad school? And how could this have been 20 years before 1972? Lang and David were born in March 1938…

one dreams of hail, the other dresns about vagabondage

there is more grist for the theological mill on this page than in a month of devotions

Just beautifully written

Charity is like a real-life friend. At times impossible to love, at times impossible not to love.

Stegner’s prose remains pitch perfect.