Stegner tended to view his subject matter in epic proportions, and the title Genesis implies through its biblical allusion an epical vision of growth and maturity.

Lionel Cullen confronts nature at its most violent; the blizzards are almost like the breath of God sweeping across the vast Canadian prairie. By confronting nature at its most elemental, Cullen finds himself stripped down to the most elemental aspects of his own personality; it is as if nature were tearing forth his latent capacity for courage and responsibility. In Stegner's westerns, characters often search for themselves or run away from themselves in the West. In The Big Rack Candy Mountain (1943; see separate entry) Bo flees into the wilderness whenever civilized life becomes too much to bear; he takes comfort in the elemental existence of surviving on one's own, without anyone to rely on. Genesis seems to be a rejection...