About the Book: Winner of the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Angle of Repose is a sweeping American saga that blends history, family drama, and the search for meaning. The novel follows retired historian Lyman Ward as he pieces together the life of his grandmother, Susan Burling Ward—a cultured artist and writer who left the East Coast in the late 19th century to follow her husband, a mining engineer, into the rugged, unsettled landscapes of the American West. As Lyman reconstructs their lives through letters and documents, he uncovers a marriage tested by hardship, ambition, and compromise. The story becomes as much about Lyman’s own reckoning—with his failed marriage, his estranged family, and his sense of purpose—as it is about the generations before him. With luminous prose and profound insight, Stegner examines how personal choices are shaped by time, place, and the slow erosion—or preservation—of dreams.