This book, about a family driven relentlessly by the father's Quixotic ambition like nomads around the Western US, deserves a much better review - and there are many excellent reviews here, so I won't attempt another. Just to say: it's brilliantly written, it's epic in scale and page-count, the four main characters in the Mason family are distinctive and complex, and the plot races along at points while at other points Stegner slows down for some philosophical reflection. If found it tugged on a variety of emotions, from sadness to anger to anxiety. Another great Stegner novel. ( )

Published in 1943, this classic family saga tells the story of the Masons – Harry (called Bo), Elsa, Chet, and Bruce – over the course of approximately thirty years. It begins in 1905, when Elsa leaves her home in Minnesota and travels to North Dakota, where she meets Bo. They fall in love, marry, and two sons are born. The family frequently moves in search of Bo’s latest get-rich-quick scheme. Bo’s schemes sometimes rely on illegal activities, such as rumrunning during Prohibition, much to the dismay of the rest of the family.

It is traditional in structure and sweeping in scope, covering a wide swath of the Northwestern US and Canada – California, Nevada, Oregon, Montana, Saskatchewan, Idaho, Utah, and the Dakotas. Stegner writes of mountains, prairies, droughts, floods, blizzards, and other natural elements faced by people living on the frontier. The plot is episodic in nature. The prose is stellar, immersing the reader into a time and place. There is no single protagonist. The plot is driven forward by Bo’s restless wanderings. Each family member is featured in several chapters.

The characters are convincing. I am sure many of us are familiar with a person like Bo, who constantly seeks the golden opportunity that lies just over the next hill. Bo is charismatic and temperamental. His temper flares when things do not go his way, which leads to conflicts with Chet and Bruce. In contrast, Elsa yearns for stability, a place to call home, and the peaceful routines of family life. She could easily live without riches. Elsa suffers in silence and tries her best to provide a stable, loving environment for her sons.

Bo pursues his dreams and does not consider the impact on his family. His actions lead his family members to both love and loathe him. He seems born out of sync with frontier expansion and has just missed the biggest boom times. Bo’s time (and the plot) includes the WWI, 1918 Influenza, Prohibition, and the Great Depression.

“Harry Mason was a child and a man. Whatever he did, any time, he was a completely masculine being…In an earlier time, under other circumstances, he might have become something the nation would have elected to honor, but he would have been no different. He would always have been an undeveloped human being, an immature social animal, and the further the nation goes the less room there is for that kind of man.”

This book requires a significant commitment of time – it is long and densely written. It is a book I am likely to remember for a long time.
( )

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There's a land that's fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

Bo Mason is a dreamer. He isn’t lazy, or unskilled, or really even criminal, but he wants everything and he wants it now, and nothing is ever enough. He wears out the people around him, his wife and his children, with his inability to settle down and just live in peace. He flirts with danger and justifies anything he does that he believes will help him hit the big time.

It would be easy to hate Bo Mason, especially when it is so easy to respect and love his wife, the beleaguered Elsa. But there is much to admire at the heart of Bo and what you feel along with the disgust and dislike is kind of grudging pity and understanding. He is like a trapped animal and his cruelty rises from a place he cannot control and mostly fails to recognize.

The book poses interesting questions. Are we destined to be a certain kind of person, a person who is seeded in us during childhood? Can a drifter, who yearns for new horizons and new challenges, force himself to settle down? Should a man bury all his dreams once he assumes the responsibility of family? Can we forget being abused in our childhood and overcome our urge to withdraw or retaliate? When we have built a life on running from adversity, can we learn to stay and fight through the bad times? Can we ever, in fact, overcome who we are? And, does love conquer anything, let alone conquer all?

What is your husband a slave to, Mrs. Mason? To himself, Mrs. Webb, to himself. To his notion that he has to make a pile, be a big shot, have a hundred thousand dollars in negotiable securities in his safe deposit box, drive a Cadillac car...He doesn’t know, he wouldn’t know, what to do with money when he has it. Would he ever think of going to the theater, or reading a good book, or taking a trip somewhere just for the trip?

That is the saddest thing about Bo Mason, to me, he is wishing for all the wrong things when all the right things might be right at his elbow. I couldn’t help thinking that I have met far too many men like him in my lifetime, people who think everything can be solved with money. But, money beyond a certain level of need, cannot really purchase happiness; only things.

Love is a strange thing, it will make us hold on to someone when we know we ought to let go. It makes us turn down the respectable and kind suitor, who would adore us, take care of us, and love our children, and opt for the wild, unpredictable, sometimes cruel man, who excites our heart and soul. Love shows itself in different ways, and sometimes even though felt is hard to express. Hate is its mirror, so closely aligned with it that I dare say you can only truly hate someone that you truly love. For is it not love that leaves you vulnerable to the hurts and stings that you would never accept from someone to whom you were indifferent?

If I had any complaint about this novel it would be that it might be shortened without losing its impact. It is autobiographical, I understand, and it is easy to believe, because it feels very personal in places. There are no black and white characters here, all are shades of grey, and if we are fair isn’t that primarily the truth--the truly evil are rare and saints are virtually non-existent. ( )

This book describes a family but I learned a long way about my own life. I am not American, never lived in Dakotas didn't live during prohibition, don't have a brother and yet! ( )

Stegner's semi-autobiographical novel is a masterpiece of fiction about the men and women who settled the American West. It is character-driven fiction with a strong sense of place. The characters are the children of pioneers who have inherited their their ancestors drive for home and opportunity and as well as their violence and resilience. ( )