Document Type
Book
Publication Date
2001
Abstract
Wallace Stegner must have felt he was gambling as he settled on Angle of Repose (1971) as the title for his most important novel—the one that would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize (1972). “Angle of repose” happens to be a bit of technical jargon from mining, and Stegner meant to extend it to marriage. This unlikely metaphor begins with the practical understanding that mine debris will tumble downhill only so far, because as a slope levels out, the rocks and the gravels and the like will start to pile up at their respective “angles of repose.” And so, too, will the married at some point reach a kind of repose—that is, if the married mean to stay that way.
Recommended Citation
Burrows, Russell. Reading Wallace Stegner's 'Angle of Repose'. Boise, ID: Boise State University, 2001. Digital. Western Writers Series, 147.