Angle of Repose

I just finished reading a book by Wallace Stegner called Angle of Repose.  In this novel the main character is writing a book making this a book about a book.  His book is about his grandmother's life, Susan Ward.  Susan grew up in New York.  She is well educated, talented in art and writing, and a little bit snobbish.  She marries an engineer named Oliver Ward who goes west to survey mines and build ditches.  She ends up living in California, Colorado, Mexico, and Idaho.  She describes the life in the western towns with her drawings and her letters.  Much of her work is published by her New York contacts and she uses this money to help support her husband and their three children.  Wallace Stegner used the actual letters of an actual person (Mary Hallock Foote) in this book.  Angle of Repose won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1972.  I had no idea I was reading such an important book when I picked it up at the library.  I really enjoyed it.  I think in 2013 I will focus on other Pulitzer Prize winning fiction.  By the way, the angle of repose is described as being laid flat out in the coffin but also the angle at which gravel stops rollling down a hill.