On paper, they come from different worlds. Charity comes from a family of academics, her father is always buried in a book and in research while her mother runs the house. Sid’s fortune comes from his family’s business and his father was very disappointed when he turned to literature. They have to live on Larry’s salary, unless he keeps selling stories and develops his writing.Ĭharity and Sid come from the opposite side of the country and social ladder: they are a wealthy couple from New England. Larry and Sally are poor, they come from the West and from working class.

It’s the Great Depression and positions are rare. Larry and Sid were both teachers in the English department at the local university. Larry starts recalling their lives and tells us how their friendship started in 1937, in Madison, Wisconsin. ( There is was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters.) They’re not here for fun, though, but more for a last farewell to Charity who’s losing battle against cancer. This is the property of Charity and Sid Lang, their long-life friends. He’s now 64 and he and his wife Sally arrived at the Lang compound in Battel Pond, Vermont. This is Larry Morgan’s voice, the narrator of Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. I never heard of anybody’s life but ours being changed by a dinner party. I have heard of people’s lives being changed by a dramatic or traumatic event–a death, a divorce, a winning lottery ticket, a failed exam. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner (1987) French title: En lieu sûr.

Book crossing to safety