A New England village, untouched by history since the American Revolution, is the unquiet arena containing, but just barely, the aloof natives and the summer residents. Their paths cross, happily or disastrously, in a book that seems too real to be fiction. As Wallace Stegner writes, the conflict on this particular frontier has been reproduced in an endlessly changing pattern all over the United States.
Wallace Stegner’s story about a rural community is told with subtle restraint in a style which is often poetic and always sensitive. -Chicago Sun Book Week

Incisive, restrained character delineation reminiscent of Willa Cather. Strongly recommended. -Library Journal

Second Growth … is a creation of remarkable penetration and skill. Its small, accurate touches build up to a full and firm whole. Its objectivity, its air of knowledge and judgment, are accompanied by an almost lyrical, delicately restrained tenderness. Its prose is disciplined, sensitive and luminous. -New York Times