As the sexual revolution is crashing around him, a crippled middle-aged professor of history Lyman Ward is grappling with the casual abandonment of his freshly liberated wife by researching the life of his talented grandmother.
In the 19th century, Susan Ward, a gifted writer and illustrator, sacrifices her dream of living the life of an East Coast intellectual in order to follow her husband Oliver on his geological ventures in the American West. Oliver has neither Susan’s gifts nor her connections. He’s perennially unlucky and creates endless trouble for Susan and their three children.
As Lyman researches his grandmother, he wonders how Susan’s life, with its self-discipline and sacrifice, compares to that of the liberated women not only of his but of the younger generations. Angle of Repose is truly a great novel, which means that it provides no easy answers.
This is one of the best reading experiences I’ve had all year. Stegner is probably the most important American novelist of the second half of the twentieth century, and this is one of his greatest novels.
Clarissa's Blog 
Great novel, I need to reread it, been decades…
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Please keep posting book reviews. Added to my list… still working my way through Trollope which has been extremely enjoyable!
-ethyl
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It’s a great joy to be able to share these great books with people. I’m very happy you like Trollope! He’s very unfairly forgotten.
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They’re public domain now, so I scooped up the complete works, and I’m reading them in order. Have read The Warden, Barchester Towers, Doctor Thorne, and just started on Framley Parsonage.
Ages since I read this much fiction. I go back and forth between him and Belloc’s essays. They are two of the small handful of authors I’ve encountered who are such a joy to read, that I almost don’t care what they are writing about.
-ethyl
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Have you finished the book yet?
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Yes. I only publish Book Notes after I finish.
It’s an excellent book.
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I wanted to wait until you were finished to ask – are you aware that this is in some way a derivative work, based on the life and letters of a real person, with certain portions reproducing her letters verbatim?
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Yes, I read that online. I’m not sure why it caused a scandal. Several Latin American writers integrated the diary of Columbus or the letters of Hernán Cortés into their novels, also verbatim. And nobody has a problem with it.
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A.S. Byatt did this with Linnaeus. Fun book.
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Clarissa
Have to agree that the angle of repose is a perfect metaphor for the strength of a stable spouse during tough times ;-D
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