“Through Larry's ocular perceivers we follow couples through the prevailing, worse, richer, poorer illness and health of their spouses.” (ABC Book Club) Marriage and friendship are both profound topics that may not be easily understood by some readers who have not been involved in such lifelong commitments. With this knowledge, Stegner realized how important it would be to use some of his own life experiences to make this novel as authentic as possible. Like Larry Morgan, for example, Stegner had lost both parents when he was just a childish adult. Stegner was never handed anything, so he had to work strenuously to thrive in his vocation. “Stegner persevered at the University of Iowa despite financial dilemmas caused by the Great Cull and family deaths” (Jason G. Horn). Of all those he had lost, however, his mother's death affected him the worst, for it was she who had provided Stegner with a kind of stability when his father could not. He also met his wife, Mary, who worked in a library while they were both graduate students; this is identical to how Larry and Sally meet in the novel. Both Mary and Sally were prodigiously influential in their husbands' lives and managed to revive their zeal for publishing. It is no coincidence that women play an immensely colossal role in Crossing to Safety due to the reverence it had