SOURCE: "Wallace Stegner: Trial by Existence," in The Southern Review, Vol. 9, part 2, Autumn, 1973, pp. 796-877.

In this excerpt, the critic explores the dualities of civilization and nature and life and death in Stegner's short stories and critiques the author's writing techniques.

"There may be a number of kinds of short stories," Wallace Stegner has said, "but all demand an intense concision and economy, and all must somehow achieve a satisfying sense of finality. Beyond that I don't think we should define or prescribe. We should only give thanks when we strike a good one." In The Women on the Wall and The City of the Living we strike as many good ones as we do in the works of any short story writer I know. There is not an unsuccessful story in either volume; the large majority are truly outstanding; a number represent the short story at its...