The Big Rock Candy Mountain

by Wallace Stegner

Overview

Bo Mason, his wife, Elsa, and their two boys live a transient life of poverty and despair. Drifting from town to town and from state to state, the violent, ruthless Bo seeks out his fortune—in the hotel business, in new farmland, and, eventually, in illegal rum-running through the treacherous back roads of the American Northwest.

Stegner portrays more than thirty years in the life of the Mason family in this masterful, harrwoing saga of people trying to survive during the lean years of the early twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140139396
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/28/1991
Series:	Contemporary American Fiction Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.76(h) x 1.22(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Wallace Stegner (1909–1993) published more than two dozen books throughout his life, including the novels Angle of Repose, which won the Pulitzer Prize; Crossing to Safety; and The Spectator Bird, which won the National Book Award. An early environmentalist, Stegner was instrumental—with his now famous “Wilderness Letter”—in the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act.
 
Robert Stone (introducer; 1937–2015) wrote more than ten books, including the National Book Award–winning novel Dog Soldiers and the novels Outerbridge Reach and A Flag for Sunrise. 

Date of Birth:

February 18, 1909

Date of Death:

April 13, 1993

Place of Birth:

Lake Mills, Iowa

Place of Death:

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Education:

B.A., University of Utah, 1930; attended University of California, 1932-33; Ph. D., State University of Iowa, 1935

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"An irreplaceable classic . . . One of the great books from which we may understand America and its rise . . . It has not aged, and it seems unlikely that, as long as memory and history preserve the bringing forth of modern life on this continent, it will ever lose relevance."
-Robert Stone, from the Introduction

"Stegner has felt the spell of mountain and prairie, of drought, flood, and blizzard. . . . A harrowing saga."
-The New York Times

"Stands out beautifully and unforgettably."
-The New Yorker

Editorial Reviews

"Stegner has felt the spell of mountain and prairie, of draught, flood, and blizzard. . . . A harrowing saga"
—The New York Times

"Stands out beautifully and unforgettably."
—The New Yorker

From the Publisher