Marking the Sparrow's Fall - Annotated by Page Stegner (Paperback)

About the Book

The first collection published since his death in 1993 contains 15 never-before-published essays by Stegner, a little-known novella, and his most powerful and best-known essays on the American West.

Book Synopsis

Winner of three O. Henry Awards, the Commonwealth Gold Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, Wallace Stegner was a literary giant. In Marking the Sparrow's Fall, the first collection of Stegner's work published since his death, Stegner's son Page has collected, annotated, and edited fifteen essays that have never before been published in any edition, as well as a little-known novella and several of Stegner's best-known essays on the American West. Seventy-five percent of the contents of this body of work is published here for the first time.

From the Back Cover

Marking the Sparrow's Fall is Wallace Stegner's biggest collection and the first since his death. His son, Page, has selected fifteen essays that have never before been published in any book and placed them alongside Wallace Stegner's most powerful pieces in the book's three nonfiction parts: Home Ground (memory), Testimony (defense of the earth), and Inheritance (history). The fourth section of the book is devoted to a magnificent little-known novella, "Genesis". As Page Stegner writes of the collection, "It is as complete and comprehensive a statement as we are ever likely to have about what it means to be a westerner, about what it means to know ourselves as 'a part of the natural world and competent to belong in it.'"

Review Quotes

"A brilliant collection of the little-known and classic prose that have established Wallace Stegner as "one of the greatest contemporary writers." --The Washington Post

"The true masterpiece...Among the finest work about the West and its meanings...Everyone who lives in the West, or loves it, should pay attention to Stegner." --Caroline Fraser, Los Angeles Times (Best Non-Fiction selection 1998)

"[A] stellar collection...Those who already know his work will welcome Marking the Sparrow's Fall. Those who don't couldn't ask for a better introduction." --George Scialabba, The Boston Globe)

"No one has written more or better about the West, past and present, than Wallace Stegner." --Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today

About the Author

The winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, Wallace Stegner is the author of a dozen novels and as many works of nonfiction, including Angle of Repose, The Spectator Bird, and Crossing to Safety. The founder and director of the graduate writing program at Stanford University, he spent much of his life in northern California and Vermont. He died in 1993.

Page Stegner is the author of many books. For twenty-eight years he served as Professor of American Literature and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He now divides his time between northeastern Vermont and northern California.