
1. It is an English professor's novel: about the challenges, pleasures, and injustices of the academic world (I remember one line to this effect: "Sure, Jesus was a great teacher, but what has he published?"). That said, it made think of what a large percentage of our intelligent contemporary novels are written by professors. Sure, I (an English professor) enjoyed Stegner's subject matter a great deal, but I'm not sure everyone would catch fire with it in the same way.
2. It is a book about getting used to New England yankees, an experience I have also had, as I married a Lexington, Mass. girl. Stegner's depiction of a strong, old-model New England woman is remarkable.
3. It is a book about being married to a strong woman, and this is another way of life about which I know a few things (and to be clear, I wouldn't trade my own strong wife for the world). Again, delicious insights into the way a powerwife operates: Charity Lang, the novel's central strongwoman, will be emblazoned on my memory from hence, a kind of archetype of her kind.
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