And every character profile has human dimensions that only a genuinely talented, observant writer can convey. Each vignette draws you in completely, magnified and made grand by his sense of time and place. I’m reluctant to go into any detail, because Stegner should be given the chance to reveal important plot points his own way. In the process, Stegner said, he managed to offload some deep-seeded resentments. Nevertheless, the book did track back to figure out what it could. He runs through his ancestors, and the only beginning is the primal beginning of the single cell in the slime." A man is not a static organism to be taken apart and analyzed and classified. "I suppose," he wrote, "that the understanding of any person is an exercise in genealogy. Here’s Bruce, though, reflecting on how impossible it is to truly understand any such thing: Both had a saintly mother, a combustible father, an athletic older brother who unlike Wally and Bruce did not skip grades, and a nomadic upbringing that included time in Saskatchewan, Montana, and Salt Lake City. He said the journal was like author’s notes - another of the many parallels between Bruce and Stegner himself. It was not a log of his activities or thoughts on the issues of the day, but rather an attempt to understand a complicated family dynamic with a flawed father driving it. Both had a saintly mother, a combustible father, an athleti Towards the end of this epic story, Bruce Mason, who was a first year law student barely 20 years old (having skipped a few grades), began keeping a journal. Towards the end of this epic story, Bruce Mason, who was a first year law student barely 20 years old (having skipped a few grades), began keeping a journal.