Ride With Me, Mariah Montana

Two Medicine Trilogy #3

by Ivan Doig

This greathearted novel is the finale of Ivan Doig's passionate and authentic trilogy about the McCaskill family and their alluring Two Medicine country along the hem of the northern Rockies.

Jick McCaskill, the illustrious narrator of English Creek, returns as the witty and moving voice in this classic encounter with the American road and all the rewards and travails it can bring. Jick faces his family's—and his state's—legacy of loss and perseverance from the vantage point of Montana's centennial in 1989 when his daughter Mariah enlists him as Winnebago chauffeur to her and her ex-husband, the magnificently ornery and eloquent columnist Riley Wright, when their news-paper dispatches them to dig up stories of the "real Montana." Just as the centennial is a cause for reflection as well as jubilation, the exuberant travels of this trio bring on encounters with the past in "memory storms" that become occasions for reassessment and necessary accommodations of the heart.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Westerns, Literature, Audiobook, Novels, The United States Of America

336 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 1990

About the author

Ivan Doig was born in White Sulphur Springs, Montana to a family of homesteaders and ranch hands. After the death of his mother Berneta, on his sixth birthday, he was raised by his father Charles "Charlie" Doig and his grandmother Elizabeth "Bessie" Ringer. After several stints on ranches, they moved to Dupuyer, Pondera County, Montana in the north to herd sheep close to the Rocky Mountain Front.

After his graduation from Valier high school, Doig attended Northwestern University, where he received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in journalism. He later earned a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Washington, writing his dissertation about John J. McGilvra (1827-1903). He lived with his wife Carol Doig, née Muller, a university professor of English, in Seattle, Washington.

Before Ivan Doig became a novelist, he wrote for newspapers and magazines as a free-lancer and worked for the United States Forest Service.

Much of his fiction is set in the Montana country of his youth. His major theme is family life in the past, mixing personal memory and regional history. As the western landscape and people play an important role in his fiction, he has been hailed as the new dean of western literature, a worthy successor to Wallace Stegner.

Bibliography
His works includes both fictional and non-fictional writings. They can be divided into four groups:

Early Works
News: A Consumer's Guide (1972) - a media textbook coauthored by Carol Doig
Streets We Have Come Down: Literature of the City (1975) - an anthology edited by Ivan Doig
Utopian America: Dreams and Realities (1976) - an anthology edited by Ivan Doig

Autobiographical Books
This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind (1979) - memoirs based on the author's life with his father and grandmother (nominated for National Book Award)
Heart Earth (1993) - memoirs based on his mother's letters to her brother Wally

Regional Works
Winter Brothers: A Season at the Edge of America (1980) - an essayistic dialog with James G. Swan
The Sea Runners (1982) - an adventure novel about four Swedes escaping from New Archangel, today's Sitka, Alaska

Historical Novels
English Creek (1984)
Dancing at the Rascal Fair (1987)
Ride with Me, Mariah Montana (1990)
Bucking the Sun: A Novel (1996)
Mountain Time: A Novel (1999)
Prairie Nocturne: A Novel (2003)
The Whistling Season: A Novel (2006)
The Eleventh Man: A Novel (2008)

The first three Montana novels form the so-called McCaskill trilogy, covering the first centennial of Montana's statehood from 1889 to 1989.

from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Doig"

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't want it to end. I just finished listening to the last word and I am tempted to re-listen to it again. I love how Ivan Doig weaves his tales, filling them with humanity and peppering in humor. He reveals the landscape and tells us of the life of a rancher in comparison with the folk that can afford to own the land. I loved how the characters rubbed along together. The relationship between Jick and Mariah is especially noteworthy. Doig writes about the complexities of negotiating relationships with adult children with a depth of understanding that resonated with me. I also enjoyed how he brought Jick into this new season of his life, the final one, and gave him something to be hopeful for.

Now, if I can just gather up all the scraps of paper I scribble my favorite quotes on as I hear them, I will include them all here:

Can't you just picture the expression on his face when you read, "He looked like Wednesday looks at Friday." I love Doig's unusual turn of phrase.

All in good humor, I enjoyed this quiet dig at the art of 'fancying' food when discussing Borscht, "In California they probably call it liquid essence of beet."

"as if Leona and I were still responsible for the care and feeding of these giant tykes." This made me giggle just a little and reminds me of the complexities of becoming a parent companion after years of being a parent guide.

This one definitely made me giggle: "I just asked him if he was still carrying a turkey under his arm for spare parts."

Then, more soberingly, Doig writes of the pain of a parent who watches as their child makes choices that they foresee will end in sorrow, especially when it comes to the choice of partners in love and in this particular case returning to an earlier stormy relationship. "Tonight a single lightning night of them together was no cause for bonedeep concern. Tomorrow and its cousins were, any of the time ahead the rest of this centennial journey or beyond when Mariah might paradoxically backslide to Riley; with all the light that ought to be ahead of her trapping herself into that again."

"their mutual season would not last the solitude in each of them would win out" - this phrase causes me to ponder.

Finally, Jick ponders his own future as a widower in his final season: "Some sixty-five years before, union between my parents passed existence along to me. On the Aleutian battlefield in 1943, the poor aim of an enemy soldier lent me life from then until now. But what next."

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I started this final title in Doig's Montana Trilogy I was happy to see the return of Jink McCaskill, the narrator of the first volume English Creek. Technically each book could stand alone, but for me the Montana Trilogy was enhanced by reading in publishing order and one right after the other. Names were fresh in my mind; all the references to the past in this book struck chords instead of making me wonder what the heck had happened here and there, and those same references did not spoil the plot of book 2, Dancing At The Rascal Fair. Since I had already finished that one, nothing here surprised me except one fact which readers of both books will know but Jink did not and never will.

So, as I said, here we were with Jink. The story takes place in 1989. JInk will be 64 years old on his birthday this year and I must confess I felt at first that he had become a sort of bitter unhappy guy. Even the story, in the beginning, felt a little aimless to me.

Mariah (photographer) and Riley (journalist) had the assignment of traveling through Montana in search of stories in the build up to the Centennial of Statehood in November of 1989. Mariah convinces dad Jink to drive them around in his motor home, and he goes along with the idea. As they travel the reader learns about Montana and about the lives of the three people in the 'Bago'. The catch is that Mariah and Riley used to be married and Jink wants to make sure they do not get any he-ing and she-ing notions during the trip. he would hate to see his daughter walk down the wrong aisle again.

The beauty of the writing was that Doig did not spend chapters telling what Jink had been up to since we saw him last. We only learn bit by bit what had happened in his life and how it had affected him. In the same bit by bit way we learn how this trip is dredging up the past for Jink, and how he is worried about what to do with both his ranch and himself as he gets older.

Every idea for an article turns into a little adventure, and many times Jink himself is the one who causes the creative light bulbs to go on for Mariah and Riley. I ended up liking the older sometimes grumpy Jink after all, and I was thrilled to pieces with both decisions he makes at the end of the book. One I guessed, the other I didn't, but both were perfect.

I am still enchanted by Doig's work, and after a spell of other authors I will come back to Doig for the three books GR groups as the Morrie Morgan Series.

[Steven Howes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the final book in Ivan Doig's McCaskill Trilogy and it is an incredible story told by a superb author. I don't know why I had waited so long to read this book as I have read the other two books in the series ("English Creek", "Dancing at the Rascal Fair") and enjoyed them immensely. I purchased the book when it came out in 1989 and even started it once but never got around to finishing it. When I opened it again, the first thing I noticed was that the author had dedicated it to Wallace Stegner, another favorite author of mine, and as I read it, it reminded me of "Angle of Repose" and "Wolf Willow"; both of which dealt with complex family history and interpersonal relationships.

This story centers on an aging widower father (Jick McCaskill), his strong-willed daughter Mariah, and her ex-husband Riley Wright. Mariah is a photographer for a Missoula, Montana newspaper and Riley is feature column writer. The three of them set out in Jick's Winnebago during Montana's centennial year to tell the "real story of Montana" in series of newspaper columns from various locations around the State. During the adventure, each story is affected by the personal histories of each of the characters and their ancestors.

One of the reasons I think I liked this story is that Jick in 1989 is the same age as I am now and I can relate to his thoughts and outlook on life. I have never had a "Bucket List" but I think I would get in my truck someday and follow the route of Jick's "Bago" around Montana and see the Montana (at least what's left of it) he saw. One doesn't have to read the previous two works to enjoy this book but I think it would help understand the characters better.

[Chrissie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook format, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the narration by Scott Sowers, in fact he drew me into the story at first. It was cute, but then as it continued it became quite simply boring. By the end I just wanted it to end.

So what was wrong? There are two central themes to the book. Jick, an elderly man, whose ancestors we have already met in the previous two books of the series, is struggling with the death of his wife and how to go forward. Should he sell his sheep ranch? The second theme is the impending Centennial Celebration of Montana's statehood. Through this you get a bit of Montana's history. Jick, his daughter(a photographer) and her previously divorced husband(a journalist) travel around Montana in preparation for the Centennial Celebration - writing, photographing and recounting the history of the state. The primary problem is that much of the story is a recounting of past events. The story is told rather than shown, rather than lived.

Jick is whiny and negative and knows so much more than everyone else - this bugged me! His humor is sardonic, more nasty than nice. But of course a novel such as this has to end on a hopeful note, so that has to be patched on at the end! Should I continue with this series?

The theme is really about family relationships, letting children mature and become independent, allowing them to make their own decisions. Parents must let go too! People have to move on, both as their children grow up and after death, but it is all a bit rather trite.

How can I give this more than one star when I just wanted it to end?! How can I say it was even OK?

[Kirstin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first two books in Doig’s Montana trilogy so this book was a bit of a disappointment. I had a really hard time getting through it. In fact I stopped a couple of times and read something else before going back to it because the beginning is just so dull. It felt like Doig went through his idea book where he had jotted down little sketches he had written as he developed his characters for English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair then went through his sketches he had written in another idea book about Montana in general and pieced all this flotsam and jetsam together with a very thin, and contrived, storyline (in 1989 Jick from English Creek, his daughter and ex-son in law travel through Montana in an RV seeking out stories for a newspaper series about the Montana statehood centennial celebration). It was almost like watching one of those flashback episodes from my favorite ‘80s sitcom where the only new scenes are of the family sitting around in the living room eating popcorn and reminiscing about past episodes because the electricity went out. What I love most about Doig is reading about those rugged homesteading years so I just had a hard time caring about these people in the relatively modern times of 1989. Their story was pretty simple so I was able to guess the entire ending about halfway through the book and it certainly didn’t help that the F word seemed to be all three of the main character’s favorite word.

Each of the novels in this triology really work as stand alone novels so read the first two and skip this one. You really won't be missing out on anything.

[Artgrrl78 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I might come back to this book someday, but for now, I just can't do it. Too much Doig this summer? Maybe. But I think part of the problem is I just prefer his writings of the homesteadin' days in Montana to anything that takes place in a contemporary setting. Too much inner dialog in this one that just doesn't really jive with his style of the other works I've read by him.....maybe I shall revisit it, but I kind of doubt it....

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final volume in Ivan Doig’s Montana trilogy is part Winnebago road trip, part centennial celebration for the state of Montana, part family saga, and part American history lesson. A big part is a nostalgic trip down memory lane for the novel’s protagonist, Jick McCaskill. Jick first appeared as a boy at the start of this trilogy, and Doig has preserved and matured all Jick’s dry-humored, laconic, first-person narration in Ride With Me, Mariah Montana.

The plot—insomuch as there is one—consists of the unlikely trio of Jick, his strong-willed daughter Mariah, and her ex-husband Riley, crisscrossing Montana in its centennial year, 1989, gathering and reporting newspaper-worthy stories. Jick is Winnebago chauffeur, Mariah is photographer, and Riley is the wordsmith. But Doig makes this more than just a series of incidental adventures on the road: it is also a journey of unique and personal discovery for each of the main players.

Mariah and Riley alternate between fiery disputes over things big and small, and sweet-spot moments of copacetic creative collaboration. Their emotions for each other are complicated swings and roundabouts. Then there is all the learning Jick has to deal with regarding both Mariah and Riley. Jick also stumbles onto poignant and stunning ancestral stories of his own: a secret, forbidden passion of his grandfather; critical gap-filling knowledge about his brother’s life and death; and even a substantial bet (payment was in kind, not dollars) his grandmother placed on the sensational Dempsey-Gibbons boxing match of 1923 in Shelby, Montana.

But as in many of Doig’s previous books, a strong contender for principal character is the state of Montana itself. Doig’s love for the land and its history is deep, sincere, and enduring. His descriptive language promotes Montana from mere story backdrop to catalytic contributor to unfolding dramatic events. When he describes the noble and vanishing herds of bison, for example, it is with intimate, heartfelt loss; similarly, he respectfully tries to put himself in the moccasins of the Nez Percé Indians upon encountering their burial ground.

The novel builds to a culminating event: a dawn celebration of the state’s centennial in Gros Ventre, Jick’s home town. However, the Winnebago and its occupants cover many eventful miles before getting there. Along the way, emotions, events, and expectations have each of them facing life-changing decisions, and the celebration in Gros Ventre seems to be the magical venue for those decisions to materialize.

The darndest thing about any Ivan Doig novel is that the reader is convinced that the author is simply telling a true tale. Clearly, this is testament to Doig’s storytelling fluency and skill. The characters are memorable, the drama is palpable, and the humor is frequently of the laugh-out-loud variety. Readers will be fully satisfied with how Doig ties together all story strands in this feel-good novel.

The previous two books in the Montana trilogy are English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair. The third and final volume, Ride With Me, Mariah Montana, is Doig’s greatest literary homage to his beloved state. One gets the impression that the decade spent writing this trilogy was much more a self-indulgent labor of love, rather than the work of a journeyman writer.

[Dell Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating: 3.5
This is a quiet, reflective book which concludes Doig's homage to Montana. Of course it's beautifully written! This wraps up all the loose ends from the other two title and bring the McCaskill saga to a close as Jick gives his failing ranch to the state as a buffalo preserve -- a fitting end fr the ranch. Not much happens here, but Jick's remembrances wrap up this saga. I really enjoyed this trilogy.

[Devonne West · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's always so hard me to choose the "fiction" bookshelf when writing reviews for Ivan Doig as they seem so real and pertinent to today. No one can weave a tale like Doig and his analogies are sarcastic phrases are second-to-none.
This is the last of the McCaskill series and with each of the books in the series, it left me with a feeling of nostalgia for the West as it once was but with Ivan Doig's books, it feels like they can live forever. I hated for book to end....or at least, I wanted to ride along in the 'bago with them! Jick, Mariah & her ex...and his mother?!? It sounds like a story for disaster but each of the characters were lovable in their own right.
....Now, on to Bucking the Sun....

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jick McCaskill returns here, in the final book of the Two Medicine trilogy. He is in his mid-60s now and as scrappy and humorous as ever. It is 1989 and it is Montana's centennial summer. He is asked by his daughter and her ex-husband, who work for a Missoula newspaper, to travel with them, as they do a grand tour of their beloved state to document this milestone. He reluctantly agrees and they take off in his trusty Winnebago. They bicker throughout but even deeper bonds form too, as they travel across this beautiful state. Doig can get a bit exhausting at times but he is an entertaining storyteller and he knows his home state with deep adoration. A good solid trilogy.

[Lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I LOVED English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair, but couldn't get past the completely clichéd, stereotypical "strong woman" character of Mariah, and her completely clichéd, stereotypical smart-ass, irreverent-newspaper-columnist ex-husband. I bailed on this early...life is too short to read books you don't like. This one was a real disappointment, unlike its two outstandingly excellent predecessors.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartwarming story of people being people while riding through
Montana in a Winnebago. I liked it!

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finishing the third book of Ivan Doig's Montana Trilogy is like eating home made cookies, good while they last.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent and enjoyable read! This is the third and final book in the Two Medicine series and a satisfying wrap up to the lives of the men and women who gave their lives to build their legacies ove the course of 100 years in Montana. I love the way the author writes and the beauty of a resilient people in a hard and majestic country. Cannot recommend this book enough!

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy these books by Ivan Doig!

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, really. Ivan Doig writes wonderful prose, but this story of riding around Montana in a Winnebago just didn't have enough meat on it for me, regardless of how beautifully told it was. It's the 3rd is a series, and I'd read and enjoyed the 1st, English Creek. I haven't read the 2nd, though, Dancing at the Rascal Fair, and maybe if I had, I would have liked this one better. I still recommend Ivan Doig as an author and plan to continue reading him.

[Mark Steinberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved how it tied up events from the first book in the trilogy.

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 4 out of 5]

English Creek
Dancing at the Rascal Fair
Ride with Me, Mariah Montana

This Montana trilogy by Doig concerning the McCaskill family in the upper northwest of Montana, on the east side of the Rockies, is a fictional treatment of the land and the people of that very real area. Despite never having visited the state, I’ve become a Big Sky fan since reading WB Guthrie’s Montana novels, a sequence of five novels, beginning with Big Sky, set in the 1840s, each novel progressing a generation or so to depict Montana’s development (growth, destruction/exploitation, accommodation). Even Larry McMurtry, known for his valorization of all things Texas, has his characters in Lonesome Dove move their cattle to the same area of Montana, a cattleman’s paradise with its lush swaths of grass that had formerly fed millions of buffalo.

Like Guthrie, Doig is interested in exploring the way generations come to co-exist with their environment, how the land’s bounty and grandeur are offset by the extremes of heat, cold, wind, fire, drought, and snow. There is underlying everything in such depictions a veneration of dogged humanity, a celebration of the human spirit that endures hardships for moments of bliss that include beautiful vistas and a sense that all’s right with the world. This bucolic and arcadian Romanticism is hard-won, bred in the bones, a sublime reality that fosters in the weary settler only a laconic acknowledgment. Reading such novels of early settlement in harsh environments appeals to instinctive virile aspects of our humanity, even as that instinct is finally overcome by the drive to subdue, tame, and domesticate the environment. Those of us living sedate, easily compassed lives in metropolitan suburbs or urban dormitories find in such sagas as Doig’s satisfactions and insights outside our immediate ken.

Doig’s trilogy begins with a first-person account in English Creek of a single six-month period in 1939, when 14-year-old Jick McCaskill relates what is happening to his family, even as he begins to understand what’s in store for him in the future. In the second novel of the trilogy, Dancing at the Rascal Fair, poetry-spouting Angus McCaskill relates nearly his entire life in Montana, from 1880 to 1929, from his departure from Nethermuir, Scotland, to his arrival as a homesteader to the Two Mountain section of Montana, to his reconciliation with his own son, Varick. In the final novel of the trilogy, Jick McCaskill recounts events during four months in 1989, when he and his daughter Mariah (and her ex-husband) travel around the state in a Winnebago to produce feature stories highlighting Montana’s centennial. The three novels are distinctly different in form, though each is narrated with first-person intimacy, and the wonder is that the different stories—youthful coming-of-age story; full-life account of immigration, homesteading, marriage, and children; contemporary small-comedy picaresque—all begin to echo each other and finally meld into a compelling, affecting saga of three generations of McCaskills thriving and enduring.

At the heart of the first two novels in the trilogy are relations and schisms that come to define the characters. English Creek relates the sundering of the McCaskill family as Jick describes how older brother Alec has decided to marry and work as a ranch hand rather than go off to college in Missoula. Also, there’s a historical mystery in the figure of Stanley Maxiel, a competent but seemingly shiftless woodsman who drinks too much and has some sort of past with Jick’s father, the forest ranger Varick McCaskill. In the second novel, Dancing at the Rascal Fair, Angus McCaskill’s relations with his best friend Rob Barclay fray to nubbins when the latter causes a rupture between Angus and his son, Varick. At the core of the rupture between the two lifelong friends is Angus’ marriage to Rob’s younger sister Adair, even while Angus carries a torch (discretely and chastely, though not secretly) for the woman (Anna Ramsay) who rejected his marriage suit and married a horse rancher. Adair and Angus have a civil, even congenial marriage, but Angus is conflicted, guilty about the sacrifices that Adair has made to accommodate his love of the harsh country, while she’d rather be back in Scotland. Stanley Maxiel appears in this novel, and Maxiel is at this time the first forest ranger of the Two Mountain national forest, having set its very boundaries. Angus’ son, Varick, early emancipates himself from his father (angry at the mistreatment he perceives Angus has done his mother) and attaches himself to Maxiel and forestry in general.

While the first two novels in the trilogy do the heavy lifting, offering up themes and variations and amplification, it’s in the last novel that the thematic intensity is tamped down in favor of a looser, episodic narrative that verges on comedy. Jick is writing in 1989, and he’s 65 years old, so there’s occasion in many of the incidentals of the peripatetic adventures of the moment for him to reflect on matters that we’ve already glimpsed in the first two novels. These sudden emotional memory flashes recall and expand the significance of what had been presented in the earlier novels; these are not outright duplications or repetitions, so there is additional resonance in learning something more about Anna Ramsay, for instance, and her husband, the horse breeder who is himself secretly aware that his wife harbors romantic interests for his friend Angus McCaskill. So, while Jick (and later his contemporary Leona Wright, brother Alec’s first great love) rides around the state with his photographer daughter and her ex-husband, newspaper writer Riley Wright, there are comic hand-wringing moments about the two of them getting back together, but the real story is always about the past, its meanings, and the legacy that he will leave.

The novels work together well to encompass Jick McCaskill’s story, with the second novel providing the most comprehensive account of the relations the family has felt with the land itself. Ivan Doig uses the first-person narratives in these novels to good effect, adopting a personable and voluble voice, one attached to discerning and thoughtful narrators. Even as Jick relates events in 1939 from the vantage of 1985, he is able to make it feel vividly in the moment, yet still suggest there’s a reflective old man taking stock. Angus’ voice is of the moment throughout Dancing at the Rascal Fair, and even while he becomes embroiled in events and conflicts, his perspective remains outwardly focused, concerned about the world beyond himself. Ultimately, the novels present a symphonic homage to Montana and the McCaskills, an embodiment of the spirit that made a home at the edge of that state’s great wilderness.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend Steve lent his copy of Ride with Me, Mariah Montana to me and has apparently gifted a copy of two other Ivan Doig books to me. It took me a long time (relative to my friends Caty, Deigh and Steve's reading rate) to finish this book but I can honestly say that I don't remember enjoying a book more. It fit me perfectly from the camera toting Mariah to the feel of the wind in Montana. Doig threw so many wonderful lines at me that I need to get my own copy and go through it again to note the route and document the lines that made me laugh or just gulp with recognition. For instance "..like many other Montana towns, there is no Easy Street in it". Not an exact quote but close enough. I love that kind of writing. Steve told me there was a surprise at the end and I started piecing that together about half way through. I got some of it correct but missed the rest so the ending was a joy.

It has been some time since I actually turned physical pages of a book and admit that if this book were available as a Kindle or ebook I'd be all over it. Now I have two other Doig paperbacks sitting patiently on my shelf. Ride with Me was the last of a series and will likely take on new meaning as I read the books that led to the final volume.

My thanks to Steve Howes for introducing me to a new, favored author.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. Turns out I read it out of order--thought I was getting number 2 in the trilogy, but it's number 3. I'm glad I got it in this order; this book has Jick McCaskill as the narrator again, and he relives a lot of the events from book 1 (great news for someone who was willing to just start book 1 all over again the minute I finished it), but there is also one amazing surprise, which would not have been a surprise, I think, had I read book 2. Now in the middle of book 2, which is two generations before Jick. Loving the whole series. Doig is a gifted viewer of people and a gifted wordsmith.

Reread because I reread both English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair. This time I read them in chronological order. Loved them all again. Possibly liked this one better than I did the first time. Jick is one of Doig's crowning achievements in a series of massive achievements.

Reread the trilogy yet again--by now, I must disclaim my original observation that it was better to read this before English Creek. There is no spoiler. Read the whole trilogy, and read it in order. It is fabulous!

[Bob Stocker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ride with Me, Mariah Montana takes place fifty years after English Creek, the first-published novel in the Ivan Doig's Montana trilogy. Jick McCaskill, who told the story in English Creek, is pressured into using his Winnebago to chauffeur his photographer daughter Mariah and her ex-husband newspaper columnist Riley Wright about Montana as they work on a series to celebrate the state's 1989 centennial. The format provides opportunities for exploring the geography and history of Montana, contemplating relationships of humans to each other and to the land, and augmenting stories in the previous two novels in the trilogy with new and surprising information.

This is an slow-moving, thoughtful book spiced with earthy similes and dry humor. Although it stands on its own, I recommend reading it only after reading English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair. Stories in the earlier novels may be spoiled by some of the revelations in Ride with Me, Mariah Montana.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last book in the Montana Trilogy, it completed the 100 years of Montana and was more modern. It was written in a very clever different style that allowed Ivan to intersperse some of his own other writings in the voice of Riley Wright. It took me longer to love it but it tied up the bundle very nicely. I recommend you read the books in Order
English Creek, and then Dancing at the Rascal Fair for the complete history complete with map. I particularly liked the DV which was sprinkled through old time letters, Deo Volunte God willing, GV Geo volunte, earth willing, All of life is God willing, especially in Montana

[Luanne Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a disappointment. It’s the conclusion of the trilogy which includes Dancing at the Rascal Fair and English Creek. From age 15 to 65 is dealt with in superficial flashbacks. Jick is now 65 and it is the centennial of Montana’s statehood. He travels the state with his daughter who is a newspaper photographer, supposedly capturing the “real Montana”. As the third volume I would have much preferred the story of Jick’s life as a rancher in mid-century Montana. This centennial premise seems contrived. It’s the first one of Ivan Doig’s books that hasn’t enchanted me with its authentic Western prose. You phoned it in, Ivan.

[Elly Sands · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ivan Doig is at the top of the list as one of my favorite authors. This final book in his trilogy was once again excellent. The narrator "Jick" reminded me of my father and that's a very good thing. Doig's writing is eloquent, poetic, articulate, and he can sure use cuss words real good too. Once again I found myself not wanting this book to end. I loved the characters, their dialogue and the magnificent descriptions of Montana's landscape. Doig's storytelling ignites my passion even more for the written word.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite - oh Jick, what have you become? Last of the Montana Trilogy: English Creek, Dancing @ the Rascal Fair and this. A bit of a letdown from the other two.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Doig's other book, but still haven't been able to make it all the way through this one.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why this book: I’ve read several other Ivan Doig books and really liked them all. Doig is one of the pre-eminent Western writers of the 20th Century. This is the 3rd book in his Montana Trilogy, behind English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair, both of which I’ve read and reviewed. I wanted to complete the trilogy, to see what happened to the McCaskill family 100 years after the beginning of the series.

Summary in 4 Sentences: Jick McCaskill is 65 years old, a widower, and the third generation of McCaskills running a ranch in the fictitious town of Gros Ventre in Northern Montana. His daughter Mariah, a photographer for the fictitious Montanian newspaper, invites him to join her and her ex-husband, a columnist for the Montanian, to drive his Winnebago on a tour of the state to take pictures and write feature articles about what they see, as part of the newspaper’s centennial celebration of Montana’s statehood. The book is written in Jick McCaskill’s voice as he shares his antipathy toward his former son-in-law, his wonder and amazement at his daughter, his impressions of the work they are doing and in his uniquely Western voice, the state of Montana they are traveling through. Living together in a Winnebago for over a month, the relationships between these three and a later participant in the journey, evolve, and we get to know the players through their interactions with each other and with the towns and people of Montana, and there are some surprises in the making.

My Impressions: Not a lot of action in this book, and there were times when I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish it. I wasn’t sure I liked Jick McCaskill’s rather sardonic view of his son-in-law Riley and his daughter Mariah and their friendship with each other and commitment to their work. The incongruity between the language of Jick’s narrative – earthy and humorous and tied to the land, and Riley’s language in his columns – educated, poetic, and descriptive, represented the differences in outlook and generations between them. His relationship with his very independent, athletic and attractive daughter Mariah was clearly close, but there were some tensions there too – mostly centered around Riley. Though they were divorced, they were still close, and there was still chemistry between them.

Read the rest of my review at: https://bobsbeenreading.wordpress.com...

[Roger Briggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

July 2014 Review of "English Creek": sheep herding, cow punching, rodeos, 4th of July picnics, Montana characters, haying, forest fires and foresters...what could be more engaging in the colorful language and snappy dialogue of Ivan Doig!

Sept 2014 Review of "Dancing at the Rascal Fair": Doig uses words like colors on a pallette. His landscapes and their details are like a Charlie Russell painting with characters that step off the page into your consciousness. Dancing at the Rascal Fair is the 2nd book of his Montana trilogy.

Review of "Ride With Me, Mariah Montana": Three years later I finish the 3rd in Ivan Doig's Montana trilogy...sorry it took so long but like life sometimes stories age as the readers do. Jick MaCaskill leads us onward as the story's surviving senior citizen with a road trip centennial celebration of Montana by Winnebago with daughter Mariah and ex-son in law Riley in tow as the Montanan's photographer and reporter respectively. There is an immediacy to their journey that will propel you along living their experiences of serendipity, meeting characters along the way and celebrating life on the road. But above all there is a spiritual quality to this story that meshes the land with its people, a poetic song of life and memory of lives lived that will reward you long after you read the last line of this book. Ivan Doig is a master story teller with tales that call out to the heavens immortalizing the human condition and its cycle of life in balance with Montana's vastness and beauty.

[Sunhawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different kind of Doig, more a gazetteer of Montana than a story of the Two Country, and so at first a little disorienting while I refocused. Once into the book -- about the time Leona joins up -- I enjoyed the collection of random stories stitched together into a centennial on-the-road book: a couple of McCaskills and accompaniment surveying the only state that stretches across a full time zone. A second (or third?) read for me, with heightened appreciation for the author's mastery of his craft. Deft strands weave it together into a book -- the Baloney Express Riders, echoes of earlier books -- reward the reader who follows the non-linear course of Doig's eight book saga. "A person tends to think that the past has happened only to himself. That it's his marrow only, particular and specific; filling his bones one special way," he writes in the last chapter, in a valediction that ties up all the loose ends most satisfactorily. Because of its breadth, this book reminds me, gently, of so many universalities: the love of foothill and mountain, the distance from youthful hopes we recall at age, the brute distance from Glacier Park to Ekalaka, the love for a willful daughter, the glory of Montana's big sky. Maybe not my favorite Two Country book, but certainly a vivid and engaging read.

[Deb W · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've been a big fan of Doig's writing for a lot of years, and I really, really liked the first two titles of this trilogy, but I just cannot read this one. I tried listening to it first, and then reacted negatively to the reader's rendition, but now reading the print format for myself I still cannot make it work for me. Maybe it's me. (I think I've been saying that more often than I like lately, but have to be honest here, it could be me.)

OR, maybe it's that Doig's characters are at odds with his plot. I mean, here we have an aging widower rancher in his RV that he was going to enjoy his retirement with his wife, but instead is using it to escort his adult daughter and her ex-husband on a centennial tour of Montana. It could be funny, but it isn't. It seems like Doig's protagonist and his cohorts are just unhappy people trying to make the best of their situation, and rubbing each other the wrong way at every opportunity.

And really, who wants to read that? I certainly don't. So, enough is enough. I'm leaving the trilogy unfinished and disappointed by it. So what? Big deal. Except I AM disappointed, and now Doig is dead and there's no coming back from a dud when you are dead. :(