Renowned environmental historian Philip L. Fradkin reveals the Wallace Stegner behind the literary legacy—a generous teacher, conservationist, and man whose early landscapes shaped his life and character. Fradkin chronicles Stegner's formative years, from the raw, desolate plains of Saskatchewan and the canyonlands of Utah to California's Silicon Valley. A lifelong teacher and environmentalist, Stegner inspired countless writers and defended the wilderness against human desecration. In this biography of man, place, and century, Fradkin traces Stegner's life across its many landscapes, and shows us how this child of the fading frontier became the voice, protector, and enduring icon of the West.
Philip L. Fradkin is the author of eleven highly praised books, including A River No More and The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906. He was the first western editor of Audubon Magazine and shared a Pulitzer Prize as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times.
“Respectful of his subject but never worshipful, Fradkin has given us our first full critical portrait of the man and his protean career..”—Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
406 pp.6 x 9Illus: 29 b/w photographs
9780520259577$26.95|Paper
Feb 2009