Reviews

For The Half-Life of Guilt

“The story is fully realized, with multi-dimensional characters and an increasingly complex tale. But why call The Half-Life of Guilt a tour de force? The excellence of this novel lies in Stegner’s masterful writing. … [I]t’s an engrossing story with vivid detail, fully dimensional characters, and the unmediated interiority of the protagonist’s mind. Stegner’s extraordinary crafting of language throughout makes for a truly outstanding novel.”

—R.P. Finch, PopMatters

“From the start, Lynn Stegner’s The Half-Life of Guilt delivers an ominous feeling. Soon enough, what it’s building to is revealed, and it is, in fact, awful, but the awful thing is not the point. In the months and years that follow, the twins Nina and Clair process those few minutes that changed everything. [W]hile weighty, the plot is never tedious. And Stegner’s simply stunning writing is full of sentences that sing off the page, and improbable yet perfectly apt descriptions: ‘The air ticks with heat, and the heat becomes time, and the time is everywhere and nowhere, a sudden menacing surfeit of the incomprehensible.’ This is a thoroughly literary novel, but the revelations keep raising the pulse of the story. Stegner knows the powerful bond between sisters, and The Half-Life of Guilt is a powerful story, beautifully told.”

—Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian, Shelf Awareness

“The Half Life of Guilt adroitly braids paired narratives: a risk-filled present journey down the coast of Mexico and the fraught past of a family in northern California. The twins at the center of the story—Nina and Clair—compel our close attention, and the novel somehow manages to be both action-packed and contemplative. Lynn Stegner gives us scientists and vintners and idealists and cynics: troubled creatures all. And she does so in prose as vivid as her scenery; the dead remain wholly alive.”

—Nicholas Delbanco, author of Why Writing Matters

“As Stegner explores both personal responsibility and our responsibility to care for the natural world, she illuminates the ways we love, fail to love, and repair our failures. Her unique sensibility makes for a fascinating read.”

—Andrea Barrett, author of Natural History and Ship Fever

“In this beautiful and layered novel Lynn Stegner takes us on a gritty road trip between two of the most vivid gardens in American literature. They are radical opposites, the tender vines of Napa and the salty recesses of the gray whale rookery at Baja, united by one woman’s fierce moral compass. Clair’s journey is a passionate tour of self-discovery and family history written so closely and with such astonishing sincerity that the entire novel becomes a kind of surprising tenderness. Clair wakes to the vast primordial world; she sees every feature and knows the heartfelt calculations of each. Lynn Stegner has the writer’s gift of creating a dear victory from the uneasiness of pristine places. This is a rich, rich book.”

—Ron Carlson, author of Return to Oakpine

“The Half-Life of Guilt is a powerful tale of family loyalty, romantic love, and the long reach of a single, shocking childhood tragedy. Lynn Stegner has a profound understanding of how sisters relate—or fail to relate—and how the truth of the past can be lost to our misperceptions. This sobering and insightful story is beautifully told.”

—Elizabeth Crook, author of The Madstone and The Which Way Tree

“Lynn Stegner is a beautiful writer. This fiercely wrought family saga will take your breath away with its sharpness and depth.”         

—Rick Bass, author of With Every Great Breath

For For All the Obvious Reasons – stories

A BookBub Pick

“The luminosity of Stegner’s images and certain crystalline moments in these stories might remind a reader of the most powerful of James Salter’s work. The blade-like deftness of the characters’ interior pronouncements and realization—often coming with surprising and breathless misdirection—might remind readers as well of the work of Alice Munro: though the more I read of Stegner, the more I come to recognize not just her voice, tone, and style, but her own underlying spirit.”

 —Rick Bass

“These stories are magnificently inhabited, each a whole world and voice unto itself, novelistic in scope yet succinct and disturbing and beautiful in the way only short stories can be. They are carefully wrought and thought; transporting and convincing and surprising. Awesome—as in, I stand in awe.”

 —Antonya Nelson

“In Stegner’s beautifully stylized writing, it takes only one opening sentence for us to become entranced.”

—Kim Barnes

“An astonishingly wise writer . . . this is fiction to learn from, and live by.”

—Alyson Hagy

“Betrayal and confusion, denial and grief, new beginnings and old scores all coalesce in Stegner’s incandescent collection of short fiction, in which she mines the uncharted territories of human vulnerability and strength. . . . Leaving an indelible impression on the reader’s memory, Stegner’s stories vibrate with a hint of danger, a discernible foreboding that the circumstances of her otherwise unremarkable characters are about to take a momentous turn. A fitting recommendation for fans of Lorrie Moore, Emma Donoghue, and Karen Russell.”

—Carol Haggas, Booklist

For West of 98 – edited by Lynn Stegner & Russel Rowland

“Many of the stories, poems, and essays in this enjoyable collection touch on widely recognized images—cowboys, cattle, the Great Plains—while others present frank, forthright arguments about race and politics specific to the states west of the 98th meridian . . . This comprehensive and sometimes contradictory collection offers as much pleasure as scholarly merit.”

— Publisher’s Weekly

“A friend went into a bookstore here on the Oregon coast and asked to see some books by Northwest authors. “You know they’re not very good,” warned the bookseller.

“When my father, the poet William Stafford, died, the obituary in the New York Times said ‘a western poet and educator’ had passed from the scene.

“This kind of disdain, in my experience, has been salutary for our tribe of writers in the West. In a land of scant rain and little honor, we turn to our work with calloused hands. When Terry Tempest Williams and Christopher Merrill convened 60 western writers for a three-day literary party in Wyoming some years ago, the name for the final dinner, where Douglas Peacock did the barbecue, was ‘Protecting What We Love.’ We were all on a first-name basis by the close. “When will we do this again?” someone said at the farewell. ‘Never,’ Terry said. ‘We’ve done it.’ We were connected, without hierarchy, in our myriad work.

“Since we are neglected, and often far apart as writers in the West, it is good to have this book, where Lynn Stegner and Russell Rowland invite 66 renegade writers from this far-flung tribe to witness living and writing out here yonder. There are poems, parables, classic essays, diatribes. It’s as if each writer lives somewhere way upstream and sends a tributary of local thought. This book is the confluence where all the good gets gathered.

“The book mutters different dialects of animal music—where Rick Bass, describing water, builds sentences that move by the halting, recursive, fluid variations of streamflow; where Gretel Ehrlich, observing the breakdown of natural systems, speaks in cryptic pre-sentences most like the first English poetry of the eighth century: ‘Frost slides. The roof glistens . . . Body of earth . . . Womb and crypt . . . the blue snake of light . . . .’

“Charles Bowden rails about hummingbirds and border agents. Annick Smith meets the bear of growing old. Barry Lopez looks at racism, Kim Barnes at language, Gary Snyder at the black-tailed hare, and as by the compound eye of the dragonfly, we witness our homeland by spoken mosaic, diversity of seeing and saying, wandering and dwelling, lament and blessing all in one broad fit.”     

— Kim Stafford, High Desert Journal

For Because a Fire Was in My Head – a novel

“[S]tunning . . . The poetic detail of Stegner’s sentences—not to mention her wanton protagonist—is reminiscent of the novels of John Updike . . . Because a Fire Was in My Head, her most ambitious novel so far, ought to attract for Stegner the wider audience she so richly deserves.”

—Julia Scheeres, New York Times Book Review, “Editor’s Choice”

“A novel fully realized on every level, Because a Fire Was in My Head is a provocative literary work of weight and luster. A risky, intermittently melodramatic tale, it casts light both on the timeless mysteries of the human psyche and on the paradoxes of a notoriously contrary epoch, namely, post-World War II North America . . . [A] bold and stunning novel.

“Ultimately, Stegner’s bold and stunning novel reminds us that for all the transformations of the tactile world, the country of the spirit remains the same, impelling us to sing the song of being human, as Yeats writes, ‘till time and times are done.’”

—Donna Seaman, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Stegner follows the tragic arc of Kate Riley, whose lifetime of self-destructive behavior takes her from rural Canada to a seaside cottage in northern California with plenty of gloomy pit stops along the way. . . . Kate’s downward spiral is undoubtedly grim, but Stegner punctuates it with muted hints of redemption; the result is uncommonly satisfying.”          

—Publishers Weekly

“With bracing prose, Stegner turns a potential monster into a character both fascinating and pitiable; you may hate Kate, but you won’t want to leave her.”

—Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

“A strikingly rendered, dark and troubling novel about one woman’s confused journey toward what she believes may very well be herself. With exquisite precision, Lynn Stegner has captured Kate Riley’s life in all its shadows and specters. A harrowing book, beautifully told.”

—Julia Scheeres, Author of Jewel

“A brilliant book, more solid than the ground we stand on. This novel does honor to the best in the tradition of storytelling, even though you occasionally want to shove the heroine off the highest possible cliff. In other words, you are drawn into the story, and when you have finished you have added amplitude to your knowledge of the human condition.”

—Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall

“Lynn Stegner’s portrait of a lost lady is as authentically compassionate as it is unsparing, a rare feat in fiction—and in life, for that matter. Accomplished from the outset of her career, Stegner has achieved here a level of mastery that places her in an elite group of those writing serious literature in America.”

—Frederick Turner, author of Redemption 

“While everyone else is hip-deep in cozy mysteries, why not stand out from the crowd with a frigid and perturbing novel about a 20th-century version of Emma Bovary? The delusional adulteress in this case is Kate Riley, born in a Saskatchewan prairie village at the height of the Great Depression. Determined to escape the ‘miserable nonexistence’ of rural life, Kate bolts for Vancouver as soon as circumstances allow. There follows an array of catastrophic relationships and abandoned babies.

“Kate’s chosen form of therapy is nonstop motion. Instead of stewing in her failures, she finds new backdrops against which to scenically transgress: first Seattle and then California. The plot centers on the question of whether she will gain spiritual sentience. Like Flaubert’s, Stegner’s protagonist has only intermittent access to her own will.”

— Molly Young, The New York Times “What to Read”

“Since the novel’s anti-heroine is unabashedly self-absorbed and unsympathetic, convincing a reader to care for her is a true accomplishment.  Four-time novelist Lynn Stegner pulls it off with panache. . . . Emotionally troubled characters are a dime a dozen, but Kate Riley’s sexual longings and American heart put her in a class of her own.”

—Bookmarks Magazine

“Who was ever on the side of the damned?  After reading this novel, I’d nominate Lynn Stegner”

—Alan Cheuse,  NPR

“Brave and old-fashioned, Stegner’s supple use of language and precise evocation of period and place bring a literary intuitiveness to this inventive portrait of a scheming temptress, rendering with disarming psychological acuity Kate’s warring self-serving and self-destructive tendencies. Kate is too egocentric to be a sympathetic heroine, yet through Stegner’s masterful treatment, she does become a forceful, persuasive, and wholly mesmerizing character.”

—Booklist

“Sometimes a character comes along that creates a confusion of feelings within the reader. Beautiful, ambitious, and self-centered young Kate Riley, the protagonist of this latest novel from Stegner is one of those characters. . . . Unfortunately, there is very little to like about Kate, a woman who rejects anything that might provide emotional stability, instead gravitating toward bad choices and worse situations (reminding one of that classic heroine we love to hate, Madame Bovary). Who can say what made Kate the way she is—her upbringing, the repressive culture, depression?—but that’s what makes this complex and emotional literary novel a compelling yet troubling experience.”          

—Library Journal

“Lynn Stegner’s novel is a compelling story of Kate Riley, an anguished heroine so adroitly written that we are drawn into the tale, no matter how disturbing. . . . Stegner is a master stylist . . . her telling details of character and insightful nuances can be breathtaking . . . Because a Fire Was in My Head is an ambitious tour de force of storytelling, but perhaps not satisfying for those who favor redemption and tidy endings. . . . Perhaps, reminiscent of Faulkner, Stegner’s story reminds us that life does not always provide those comforts and that atonement is not always possible.”

—Barbara Harrelson, Santa Fe News

“Having been a writer’s writer for 20 years, Lynn Stegner is not exactly new. Yet her latest book, Because a Fire Was in My Head, will undoubtedly catapult her to literary fame. . . . Stegner has rendered a truly tragic story, yet she writes it beautifully, demonstrating the stunning things that can be done with the English language when one is gifted.”

—Deseret Morning News

“It’s hard to care about [Kate], which could prompt some readers to give up on the character, and the book. This would be a shame, as Stegner’s meaty, eloquent prose, and the book’s satisfying conclusion, make Kate’s story ultimately worthy of seeing through to the end.”

—Quill and Quire

 For Pipers at the Gates of Dawn – novellas 

“A gifted writer . . . elegant ideas . . . beautiful writing . . .”

—New York Times Book Review

“. . . richly textured yet finely drawn prose.”

—The Boston Sunday Globe

“In this absorbing triptych of novellas, Stegner dissects with taut prose and decisive narrative moves the complex emotional states of characters living in a hamlet in Vermont called Harrow. . . . Stegner’s storytelling skills are impressive. These expressively written tales maintain their momentum even as Stegner commands the reader’s attention to look at fog over a lake or ice cream melting into homemade apple pie.”

—Publishers Weekly

“These novellas are marvelously poetic, taut, impeccably observed, nerved everywhere with honest, painful insight.”

—Peter Matthiessen

“. . . A major accomplishmen . . . resonates with the depth and clarity of a cathedral bell.  In concise and elegant prose, the author conveys an exquisite sense of place, giving readers a captivating you-are-there feeling. . . .”

—Library Journal

“In this fine, poetic book . . . [Stegner] gets inside her characters, makes us know them, care about them, and through them, we know a place where the woods are thick and fog hovers over the lakes in the early morning.”

—San Jose Mercury News

“. . . an eloquent fictional evocation of life in New England as Robert Frost and John Cheever would have recognized it. . . . It is an uncommonly fine work of fiction, which moves from the particular to the universal with great artistry.”

—Green Mountain Bookshelf

“This is beautiful writing: the kind that articulates precise emotional complexity in sensuous terms.”

—Booklist

“A beautiful and evocative book.”

—Burlington Free Press

“Each of these tales leaves a challenging number of concepts to ponder, and a presentation to applaud for its intelligence and distinctive appeal.”

—Sunday Times Argus (Vt.)

For Fata Morgana – a novel

“. . . a psychologically compelling and indelible novel; Stegner’s smooth, flowing prose style and dead-accurate descriptions (sometimes heartrending, sometimes wickedly funny) keep drawing the reader deeper and deeper into her story.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“. . . a sensitive, fiercely intelligent portrait of a friendship—and its rupture—over time. . . . Lush descriptions of nature and powerful metaphysical riffs on death, sex, love and the meaning—or lack thereof—of life.”

—Publishers Weekly

“. . . a remarkable sensitivity to both the physical and emotional territory of her setting.”

—Los Angeles Times

“Gutsy, unpretentious writing. . . a darkly layered psychological tale that throws off the most surprising, floodlit revelations about love and friendship.”

—San Jose Mercury News

“An extraordinary descriptive skill enhances the personality-driven plot of Lynn Stegner’s intriguing novel of self-discovery. . . . An unusual coming-of-age tale, Fata Morgana will stay with the reader for a long time.”

—San Gabriel Valley Daily Tribune

“Fata Morgana is a beautifully written story about a powerful relationship between two women. In the tradition of Margaret Atwood, Stegner eloquently weaves the past into the present in her involving novel, and fascinates with her characters.”

—Small Press

For Undertow – a novel

“Both the writing and the story have an elevating dignity and presence. . . . Undertow is a fascinating depiction of a woman’s attempts to ‘throw down the pick-up-sticks of her life’ and learn how to play her own game.”

—New York Times Book Review, Notable Book

“Elegant power, an integrity of purpose”

—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Before Stegner is finished, you will want to jump into the pages of this beautiful book.”

—Birmingham News

“[Stegner] evinces a fine-tuned sensitivity for complex emotions. . . . [Undertow] is a profoundly insightful, refreshingly honest portrait of dilemmas that will resonate for many women.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Stegner’s narrative is laced with a network of metaphors connecting the moral and natural landscapes, inviting comparison with writers like Margaret Atwood, Jane Smiley, and Barbara Kingsolver. But Stegner speaks with an accent and an energy all her own. Her descriptions of the coastal landscape have the bright bite of the sea air, as do her insights about sexual politics. This novel draws you into its world as irresistibly as its title suggests.”

—Belles Lettres

“Elegant in its language, luminous in its perceptions, unprotected in its candor, Undertow charts the terra infirma of the heart with tremendous power and intimacy. The hard-won clarity and emotional intensity of Lynn Stegner’s fiction set her apart from most contemporary novelists and make this gloriously gifted writer one we ought to be grateful for.”

—Ron Hansen

News & Interviews

PopMatters | “The Journey Motif in The Half-Life of Guilt Is No Guilt Trip” by R.P. Finch. Rating: 9 out of 10. September 12, 2024.

Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb | Lynn Stegner discusses her new novel The Half-Life of Guilt with Deborah Kalb. September 3, 2024.

The New York Times | “What to Read: Bad Ideas, Senior Living and Scenic Transgressions” by Molly Young. Because a Fire Was in My Head is recommended. December 3, 2022.

“While everyone else is hip-deep in cozy mysteries, why not stand out from the crowd with a frigid and perturbing novel about a 20th-century version of Emma Bovary? The delusional adulteress in this case is Kate Riley, born in a Saskatchewan prairie village at the height of the Great Depression. Determined to escape the ‘miserable nonexistence’ of rural life, Kate bolts for Vancouver as soon as circumstances allow. There follows an array of catastrophic relationships and abandoned babies.

“Kate’s chosen form of therapy is nonstop motion. Instead of stewing in her failures, she finds new backdrops against which to scenically transgress: first Seattle and then California. The plot centers on the question of whether she will gain spiritual sentience. Like Flaubert’s, Stegner’s protagonist has only intermittent access to her own will.”

2013 Gival Press Short Story Award & 2014 Pushcart Prize Nomination

The short story titled “For All the Obvious Reasons,” chosen by the previous winner of the Gival Press Short Story Award Karenmary Penn, has won the 10th annual Gival Press Short Story Award. Look for the upcoming collection of the 10 award-winning stories in a volume to be published by Gival Press. “For All the Obvious Reasons” has been nominated for the 2014 Pushcart Prize. Feb 14, 2014.

Billings Gazette | “Ambitious anthology tries to corral West’s essence,” by David Abrams. Oct 23, 2011, updated Feb 10, 2016.

“Lynn Stegner, who co-edited the anthology with Billings author Russell Rowland, writes in the introduction that the original goal was to find ‘a kind of Greek chorus that might define, remark upon, and otherwise characterize the West as each of us grew to know it, and, equally important, the West that is still becoming. A declaration not of our independence this time, but of our interdependence.’”

Narrative Magazine | Spring 2011 Selected Honors for “The Boat on the Lake” which appears in Lynn Stegner’s book For All the Obvious Reasons. Spring 2011.

Narrative Magazine | Spring 2010 Selected Honors for “The Anarchic Hand” which appears in Lynn Stegner’s book For All the Obvious Reasons. Spring 2010.

Stegner Symposium 2009 | “Narrative Art & Architecture: Wallace Stegner’s House of Fiction.” Presented by Lynn Stegner at the 14th Annual Symposium, hosted by the Wallace Stegner Center at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. March 7, 2009.

The Smoking Poet | Feature Author Interview “Talking to Lynn Stegner.” Russell Rowland, co-editor of the online literary magazine interviews Lynn Stegner. Summer 2008.

Los Angeles Times Book Review | “The scheme queen,” by Donna Seaman. Author and Editor for Adult Books at Booklist, Donna Seaman reviews Because a Fire Was in My Head by Lynn Stegner. April 15, 2007.