If you pick up a copy of Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, you’re holding a book that many consider the "Great American Novel" of the West. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. It’s taught in almost every Western literature course from Stanford to Yale. But honestly? There is a massive, uncomfortable shadow hanging over this masterpiece that most casual readers completely miss.
Basically, the book is a double-decker bus of a narrative. On one level, you’ve got Lyman Ward, a retired history professor in 1970 who is losing his leg to a bone disease and his wife to a surgeon. He’s bitter, stuck in a wheelchair, and retreating into the past to escape a present he hates. On the other level, he’s "writing" the biography of his grandmother, Susan Burling Ward, an elegant artist who followed her engineer husband, Oliver, across the rough, unwashed mining camps of the late 19th-century West.
It’s a gorgeous read. The prose is thick and lyrical. But here’s the kicker: Susan Burling Ward wasn't just a figment of Stegner’s imagination. She was almost entirely based on a real woman named Mary Hallock Foote. And when I say "based on," I mean Stegner used Foote’s actual personal letters and unpublished memoirs—sometimes word-for-word—to build his "fiction."
The Controversy You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
Most people think of plagiarism as a student copying a Wikipedia entry. With Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner did something much more complex and, according to some, much more "devious."
He had permission from Mary Hallock Foote’s granddaughters to use the family papers. That’s the legal shield he stood behind. But the controversy stems from the fact that he didn’t just use her life as inspiration; he lifted about 10% of the book directly from her writing without clearly attributing those specific passages to her in the text. To a modern reader in 2026, this feels... iffy.
👉 See also: Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi: Why the Immaculate Star is the Real Deal
Why it actually matters
- The "Stolen" Voice: Critics like Sands Hall have pointed out that Stegner took Mary’s real, melodic prose and passed it off as his character’s voice.
- Character Assassination: In real life, Mary Hallock Foote had a long, relatively stable marriage. In the novel, Stegner adds a scandalous affair and a tragic drowning that never happened.
- The Gender Power Dynamic: There’s a persistent sting in the fact that a "Great Man" of literature won his biggest prize by cannibalizing the private writings of a woman whose own work had fallen into obscurity.
Stegner himself wasn't blind to this. He once said the "ways of fiction are devious indeed." He felt that to make a "truthful" novel about the human condition, he had to warp the facts. He needed a tragedy to explore the "angle of repose"—that point where a sliding pile of rocks finally stops moving. He was looking for the point where a marriage, battered by disappointment and betrayal, finally reaches a state of rest.
What "Angle of Repose" Actually Means
If you’ve ever seen a pile of sand or gravel, you’ve seen the angle of repose. It’s the steepest angle at which the material remains stable without sliding down.
In the novel, it’s a heavy-handed but beautiful metaphor. Lyman is looking for his own angle of repose as his body falls apart. But more importantly, he’s looking at Susan and Oliver. They lived together for decades after a catastrophic break in their trust. They reached a point where they didn’t necessarily have "happiness," but they had stability. They stopped sliding.
👉 See also: Professor Filius Flitwick: Why the Wizarding World’s Deadliest Duelist is More Than a Punchline
It’s a bleak way to look at love.
Lyman’s grandson, a product of the 1960s counterculture, thinks the old way of staying together "for the kids" or out of duty is total nonsense. This creates a friction in the book between the "Old West" values of endurance and the "New West" values of personal fulfillment.
The Structure is the Secret Sauce
Stegner doesn't just tell a linear story. He jumps.
- We start in 1970 with Lyman’s grumpy observations.
- We slide back to 1876 New York.
- We jump to Leadville, Colorado, or Boise, Idaho.
- We return to Lyman arguing with his hippy secretary, Shelly.
This back-and-forth makes the history feel alive. It’s not a dusty museum exhibit; it’s a conversation. Lyman is trying to prove that the past has something to teach the present, even if the present doesn't want to hear it.
Is It Still Worth Reading?
Honestly, yes. Despite the plagiarism allegations, Angle of Repose remains one of the most vivid depictions of the American West ever written. It completely deconstructs the "cowboy and Indian" myth. There are no shootouts at high noon. Instead, there is the grinding reality of trying to build a canal in a desert that doesn't want it. There is the loneliness of a cultured woman trying to keep her "Eastern" soul alive in a shack in Mexico.
Stegner’s descriptions of the landscape are unmatched. He describes the West not as a land of opportunity, but as a land of "high-risk, low-reward" endurance.
✨ Don't miss: That Time Sia Turned Into a Pony: Songbird Serenade and the My Little Pony Movie Legacy
But you have to read it with a critical eye. You’ve got to remember that the "Susan" you’re reading about is a distorted mirror of a real woman, Mary Hallock Foote, who was a brilliant artist in her own right. Stegner made Susan more "bitchy" and "entitled" than Mary likely was to serve his narrative of a failing marriage.
Actionable Insights for Your Next Read
If you’re planning to dive into Stegner’s world, or if you’ve already read it and feel a bit conflicted, here is how you can get the full picture:
- Read the "Real" Story: Pick up A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West. It’s Mary Hallock Foote’s actual memoir. Comparing it to Stegner’s novel is a masterclass in how fiction is built (and how it can be predatory).
- Look at the Art: Search for Mary Hallock Foote’s original illustrations for The Century Magazine. They are stunning and give you a visual of the world Stegner was trying to capture.
- Visit the Locations: If you’re ever near Grass Valley, California, or Boise, Idaho, you can see the places where these families lived. The "Zodiac Mine" in the book is based on the real North Star Mine.
- Question the Narrator: Don't trust Lyman Ward. He’s an unreliable narrator who is projecting his own bitterness about his ex-wife onto his grandmother.
The book is a masterpiece, but it’s a flawed one. Maybe that’s fitting. The "angle of repose" isn't about perfection; it's about what’s left when everything else has fallen away.
To truly understand the weight of Stegner's work, start by comparing the first chapter of the novel with the opening of Mary Hallock Foote's memoir to see exactly where the lines between history and "borrowed" prose begin to blur.