When that delicious and all-too-uncommon occasion arises for me to read something for myself, nothing feels better than making just the right choice—something with texture, substance, and richness. And I have learned that the best recommendations tend to come from writers whose works I admire. So when I read a tribute to Wallace Stegner in the book What Are People For? by Wendell Berry (1990) I decided that Stegner was an author I needed to explore.

Berry praised Stegner, his former teacher, as also being the mentor of—among other literary stars—Ernest Gaines, Ken Kesey, Robert Stone, Tillie Olson, and Raymond Carver. I thought that I should read more of the teacher since I had admired so many of his students. And I was certain the time to embark upon that reading had arrived when Berry quoted Stegner as saying in an essay, "Thought is neither instant nor noisy. .. . It thrives best in solitude, in quiet, and in the company of the past, the great community of recorded human experience."

The quotation promised much; the writer delivered more.

To sit back and read Collected Stories of Wallace Stegner slowly and deliberately is to enter into "the great community," a community that invites readers into a larger conversation, not through soaring prose or gimmicky plots, but with writing that is as real as the moment and as enduring as history.

In many literary circles Stegner may be overlooked—too young (born in 1909) for the "Lost Generation" and too much of a regionalist (the West) for the provincial taste of some—but he is not overshadowed by either the acknowledged literary giants of the past or the burgeoning group on the horizon. Within a week after his death in 1993 I noticed that bookstores had bolstered their supply of his works and, while it is unfortunate that his passing may be responsible for bringing him the wide attention he deserves, with each new reader the great community expands, and I suspect that would suit Wallace Stegner just fine.

In his foreword to Collected Stories Stegner acknowledges that "I have a tyrannous sense of place," undoubtedly the force behind the powerful settings in his stories. Without belaboring his prose, Stegner transports his readers into a multitude of realities. His settings are sensual and tactile—they chill, warm, capture, release, invigorate, and depress. But at the same time he makes them part of the whole, an extension of the circumstances the characters face, an expansion of—not just a backdrop for—the action. A place, a setting, is a spot in the community, and everything evolves from the spot individuals find themselves in at any given moment.

In a story entitled "Chip Off the Old Block," influenza sweeps through a small Montana town in the late fall of 1918. A young boy named Chet is the only member of his family not stricken. His parents and brother are carted off to a makeshift hospital, and Chet must protect the home and fend for himself. At first he bursts with exhilaration at the challenge and the responsibility. But as time passes, exhilaration gives way to the reality of emerging adulthood:

Sometimes he stood on the porch on sunny, cold mornings and watched Lars Poulsen's sled go out along the road on the way to the graveyard, and the thought that maybe Mom or Bruce or Pa might die and be buried out there on the knoll by the sandhills made him swallow and go back inside where he couldn't see how deserted the street looked, and where he couldn't see the sled and the steaming gray horses move out toward the south bend of the river. He resolved to be a son his parents could be proud of, and sat down at the piano determined to learn a piece letter-perfect. But the dry silence of the house weighed on him; before long he would be lying with his forehead on the keyboard, his finger picking on one monotonous note. That way he could concentrate on how different it sounded with his head down, and forget to be afraid.

This is vintage Stegner: an isolated point in time; the confluence of thoughts and events. The scene narrows from the large-scale view that is tinged with a feeling that borders on hysteria; focuses down to a resolution that strengthens Chet's spirit; and concludes with an isolated, symbolic change in perspective; a piano note that lingers in the air, signaling a new tone, an intensifying of circumstances, and a growing maturity.

Stegner's stories are filled with these points, but to look at them in isolation (as I did above) is, admittedly, a disservice. After all, they are part of the bigger conversation of human experience. Still, sampling a little piece here and there is enough to make you part of that conversation—and it's a fulfilling conversation since all thirty-one stories are gems, each with its own unique sparkle.

"The Berry Patch" tells the story of steadfast love shared by a young married couple in the late 1930s. They simply talk among wild berries, and a tension that has touched their relationship dissipates. Perley marvels at the resiliency of the luxurious berries, and he says to Alma:

"Funny thing about a berry patch. . . . Nobody ever plowed it, or planted it, or cultivated it, or fertilized it, or limed it, but there it is. You couldn't grub it out if you tried. More you plow it up, the more berries there is next year. Burn it over, it's up again before anything else."

And so love grows in the great community.

"The Women on the Wall" is grimly poignant—during World War II a group of women gathers at a California beach wall every day and waits for the mail to arrive, fearfully aware

that the Japan Current, swinging in a great circle up under the Aleutians and back down the American coast, might as easily bear the mingled blood or the floating relics of a loved one lost as it could bear the glass balls of Japanese netfloats that it sometimes washed ashore.

And so people go to meet their fate—or wait for it to come to them—in the great community.

Stegner's community, then, is built upon realities. And it is a conscious construction, for he also writes in the foreword: "If art is a by-product of living, and I believe it is, then I want my own efforts to stay as close to earth and human experience as possible." So to read the stories is to enter the community, experience the lives, and participate in the "by-product of living." Which makes Stegner a satisfying choice indeed.