Mark Fiege

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Wallace Stegner is an iconic western writer. His works of nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Angle of Repose and Big Rock Candy Mountain, as well as his nonfiction books and essays introduced the beauty and character of the American West to thousands of readers. Wallace Stegner’s Unsettled Country assesses his life, work, and legacy in light of contemporary issues and crises. Along with Stegner’s achievements, the contributors show show more how his failures offer equally crucial ways to assess the past, present, and future of the region.

Drawing from history, literature, philosophy, law, geography, and park management, the contributors consider Stegner’s racial liberalism and regional vision, his gendered view of the world, his understandings of conservation and the environment, his personal experience of economic collapse and poverty, his yearning for community, and his abiding attachment to the West. Wallace Stegner’s Unsettled Country is an even-handed reclamation of Stegner’s enduring relevance to anyone concerned about the American West’s uncertain future.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Why revisit the life and work of yet another old, dead white guy in all his sexist, regressive glory Because he has a lot to tell us, and teach us, about our world and its roots, I'm told in these essays.

Stegner is nowhere near as troublesome to modern sensibilities as many of his contemporaries. He was blissfully unaware of the importance of nonwhite people in the discourses about our country, yet perfectly willing to discourse about them and their issues. His unawareness of the privilege of old-white-maleness was tempered by his genuine concern for the abuses and issues of people not like him; but he was a man of his time, and both misogynistic and paternalistic in his attitudes. Liberalism is not enough, and that idea never so much as crossed his mental radar. He is shown here in all his flawed grandeur, a talented writer and a man more open to learning and to changing his mind as facts and evidence demanded. His position as a monadnock of Western-US writing, and thinking about Western-US issues, is not diminished by assesssing his failings, flaws, and mistakes. That does not, however, mean the essays about him don't take A Tone that swings from laudatory to embarrassed. It wore my patience too thin.
Bison Books asks $14.99 for a Kindlebook. You'd need to be a much bigger fan than I am to shall that out. show less

Gave up on the audiobook due to the narrator.
Might be worth picking up the ebook version.