In an adapted excerpt from his book, All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner and the American West, over at Salon, David Gessner explains how Wallace Stegner and Edward Abbey “can serve as…
“Short stories are hard because you have to start over every time, but they're what I did first. I like living in a novel, as a writer and as a reader, but sometimes you can't see your way out.”
I expected to feel a sense of accomplishment when I finished Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose," but instead I felt lost, grief-stricken. It was a mixture of sadness for the main character and a fear that I might yet ruin my own life—but mostly I wanted to be back in the middle of that book.