Angle of Repose

Retired historian Lyman Ward, confined to a wheelchair and cut off from his son and family, sets out to write the story of his grandparents and their life on the American western frontier. His research reveals more about his own life than he is willing to admit. Wallace Stegner’s 1971 novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it drew directly on the letters of Mary Hallock Foote, a use that remains controversial among some scholars.