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Heart Earth
Ivan Doig grew up with only a vague memory of his mother, Berneta, who died on his sixth birthday. Then he discovered a cache of her letters that revealed her true character. Through her missives, Doig found a spunky, passionate, can-do woman as at home in the saddle as behind a sewing machine, and as in love with language as her son. In this prize-winning prequel to his acclaimed memoir This House of Sky, Doig brings to life his childhood before his mother’s death and the family’s journey from the Montana mountains to the Arizona desert and back again. He eloquently captures the texture of the American West during and after World War II, the fortune of a family, and one woman’s indomitable spirit.
130 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1992
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938 people want to read
About the author
Ivan Doig
39 books789 followersIvan 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"
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"
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 148 reviews
March 10, 2022
Mar 9, noon ~~ Review in a few!
8pm ~~ In 1978 Ivan Doig published a memoir titled This House Of Sky, which told about his life in Montana, beginning at around age six. I am currently reading that book for the third time; the first time was my introduction to this author and many years before I ever knew about GR.
But in 1986 Doig's Uncle Wally died. His mother's brother. And there was a packet of letters she had written to him while he was in the Navy during WWII. Uncle Wally wanted Ivan to have this packet. After reading the letters, Doig wrote this book, which was originally published in 1993.
In it he shares what he learned from the letters and his own memories prior to his sixth year, which was when his mother died. She had asthma her entire life, and battled fiercely to be able to live as active a life as she could. She must have been a pistol.
This is a moving, beautifully written book, as are most of Doig's, but especially his memoirs. Besides learning more about him and his family, in this book more than ever the reader sees the kernels of so many memorable characters that appear in Doig's fiction. And we begin to truly understand why he was so capable at portraying the lives of boys who had different family backgrounds than would be considered 'normal'.
The book revolves around his mother, and I can only imagine how bittersweet it was for Doig to write. He would have had to deal with both painful memories and beautiful ones. And hopefully he was able to make sense of some of the issues the child inside probably never quit wondering about.
Writers nearly always are able to figure themselves and their lives out through their writing, whether they write memoirs or fiction. Doig discovered that his mother was more than a very young child's misty visions. She was real, she loved him, and she will never be forgotten.
8pm ~~ In 1978 Ivan Doig published a memoir titled This House Of Sky, which told about his life in Montana, beginning at around age six. I am currently reading that book for the third time; the first time was my introduction to this author and many years before I ever knew about GR.
But in 1986 Doig's Uncle Wally died. His mother's brother. And there was a packet of letters she had written to him while he was in the Navy during WWII. Uncle Wally wanted Ivan to have this packet. After reading the letters, Doig wrote this book, which was originally published in 1993.
In it he shares what he learned from the letters and his own memories prior to his sixth year, which was when his mother died. She had asthma her entire life, and battled fiercely to be able to live as active a life as she could. She must have been a pistol.
This is a moving, beautifully written book, as are most of Doig's, but especially his memoirs. Besides learning more about him and his family, in this book more than ever the reader sees the kernels of so many memorable characters that appear in Doig's fiction. And we begin to truly understand why he was so capable at portraying the lives of boys who had different family backgrounds than would be considered 'normal'.
The book revolves around his mother, and I can only imagine how bittersweet it was for Doig to write. He would have had to deal with both painful memories and beautiful ones. And hopefully he was able to make sense of some of the issues the child inside probably never quit wondering about.
Writers nearly always are able to figure themselves and their lives out through their writing, whether they write memoirs or fiction. Doig discovered that his mother was more than a very young child's misty visions. She was real, she loved him, and she will never be forgotten.
July 10, 2024
2016
3
Doig must have enjoyed interweaving his memories, the info in his mother's letters, family stories, and the history of the times to create this book. One of these days, I'll read "This House of Sky," which continues the family story. (Setting: mainly Montana, some Arizona)
Doig tries too hard to write colorful sentences with unusual word usage. Example:
Amid this whirl of tartan cowboys, the one to watch is the shortest and dancingest, a goodlooking jigger of a man built on a taper down from a wide wedge of shoulder to wiry tireless legs.
I kept wanting to say, "Just talk to me! Tell me the story, don't bury it in words." I didn't run into this problem with his fiction.
2024
Prose poetry is not my choice, especially when I have to read the same sentence 4 or 5 times and then decide that the 'lyrical' words don't add anything to the prose. The last third of the book flows much more smoothly.
Is a memoir considered nonfiction? Especially when whole scenes and conversations are invented based solely on a snippet of a sentence? (And these scenes take place when the author was only 4 or 5 years old?)
p 85 picturesque (and not poetic)
Softhearted as my grandmother was toward all creatures except the human, she could never bear to chop the head off a chicken. Early in her Montana life, when my mother was still a toddler, there came a Sunday when chicken was the only available meal and nobody else was around to do the chopping. My grandmother caught the chicken, tied its legs, put it in the baby buggy with my mother, and trundled down the road a couple of miles to the next ranch to have a neighbor do the neck deed.
3
Doig must have enjoyed interweaving his memories, the info in his mother's letters, family stories, and the history of the times to create this book. One of these days, I'll read "This House of Sky," which continues the family story. (Setting: mainly Montana, some Arizona)
Doig tries too hard to write colorful sentences with unusual word usage. Example:
Amid this whirl of tartan cowboys, the one to watch is the shortest and dancingest, a goodlooking jigger of a man built on a taper down from a wide wedge of shoulder to wiry tireless legs.
I kept wanting to say, "Just talk to me! Tell me the story, don't bury it in words." I didn't run into this problem with his fiction.
2024
Prose poetry is not my choice, especially when I have to read the same sentence 4 or 5 times and then decide that the 'lyrical' words don't add anything to the prose. The last third of the book flows much more smoothly.
Is a memoir considered nonfiction? Especially when whole scenes and conversations are invented based solely on a snippet of a sentence? (And these scenes take place when the author was only 4 or 5 years old?)
p 85 picturesque (and not poetic)
Softhearted as my grandmother was toward all creatures except the human, she could never bear to chop the head off a chicken. Early in her Montana life, when my mother was still a toddler, there came a Sunday when chicken was the only available meal and nobody else was around to do the chopping. My grandmother caught the chicken, tied its legs, put it in the baby buggy with my mother, and trundled down the road a couple of miles to the next ranch to have a neighbor do the neck deed.
April 28, 2025
This is just the gentle quiet book I needed at this time. I loved, This House of Sky, which started off after Ivan Doig's mother had died and he was being cared for by his father and maternal grandmother. Heart Earth brings Doig's mother to life through discovered letters.
Doig describes himself “emotionally skittish of opening himself up like a suitcase, delver into details to the point of pedantry, dream weaver on a professional basis, some of me is indisputably my father and my grandmother, and some I picked up on the way, but another main side of myself I recognize with wonder in reflection of my mother’s letters.”
His mother had been deeply loved both by her mother and her husband. She wrote, “If a couple loves one another enough they can overcome most anything that comes along – those four words were the only ones my mother underlined, ever, in her entire set of letters to Wally.”
Doig's mother suffered from ill health and asthma in particular, which can be made better or worse in certain climates and locations. Doig writes, “The geography of risk of how to best situate my mother. My grandmother desperately wished that my parent, my father, would choose somewhere in Montana, right about across the road from her would be ideal.”
When his mother died, he writes that “Nobody got over her – Doig or Ringer, those around me in my growing up stayed hit, pierced by my mother’s death in the mountain cabin.”
Doig discovered just how bitterly his father and maternal grandmother fought over him and had to overcome their differences to create a home together to raise him in after his mother died. He writes, “The letters teach me anew though, how desperately far they had to cross from that summer of grief.”
Doig treasures these letters that help him to know his mother better; understand the relationships within his family, and know more of himself. “On through that summer of 1945, the last of the letters in Wally’s packet were written and sent out in misery and confusion, several by my grandmother and a pair by my father. Brittle and cracking a bit more each time I unfold them, they still manage to stab.”
Notable quotes:
“Language is the treasury of the poor.”
“Dreams give us lift.”
Doig describes himself “emotionally skittish of opening himself up like a suitcase, delver into details to the point of pedantry, dream weaver on a professional basis, some of me is indisputably my father and my grandmother, and some I picked up on the way, but another main side of myself I recognize with wonder in reflection of my mother’s letters.”
His mother had been deeply loved both by her mother and her husband. She wrote, “If a couple loves one another enough they can overcome most anything that comes along – those four words were the only ones my mother underlined, ever, in her entire set of letters to Wally.”
Doig's mother suffered from ill health and asthma in particular, which can be made better or worse in certain climates and locations. Doig writes, “The geography of risk of how to best situate my mother. My grandmother desperately wished that my parent, my father, would choose somewhere in Montana, right about across the road from her would be ideal.”
When his mother died, he writes that “Nobody got over her – Doig or Ringer, those around me in my growing up stayed hit, pierced by my mother’s death in the mountain cabin.”
Doig discovered just how bitterly his father and maternal grandmother fought over him and had to overcome their differences to create a home together to raise him in after his mother died. He writes, “The letters teach me anew though, how desperately far they had to cross from that summer of grief.”
Doig treasures these letters that help him to know his mother better; understand the relationships within his family, and know more of himself. “On through that summer of 1945, the last of the letters in Wally’s packet were written and sent out in misery and confusion, several by my grandmother and a pair by my father. Brittle and cracking a bit more each time I unfold them, they still manage to stab.”
Notable quotes:
“Language is the treasury of the poor.”
“Dreams give us lift.”
April 6, 2018
I didn’t expect to enjoy this book so much. I’m not much of a reader of memoirs. But this is like reading one of Doig’s fictional tales. It is an incredible legacy for his family in particular, and anyone from that area of Montana. It is a fun adventure throughout the book.
February 7, 2019
This is a prequel to This House of Sky. Ivan Doig came across a precious cache of letters written between his parents, grandmother, and maternal uncle. It helped him understand some of the family tensions. It also gave him insight to his Mom, who died unexpectedly when he was just six years old.
January 19, 2021
Imaginative and moving, with plenty of details, and a type of soft humor as this family's life and fate is retold in a colorful way by Mr. Doig, through the discovery of a old tin box full of war time letters and correspondence.
Blurb excerpt: "... this remarkably told saga of the Doigs and their journey from a defense housing project in boomtime Arizona to the high country of their Montana origins builds with the drama only real life can hold."
4 Stars
Blurb excerpt: "... this remarkably told saga of the Doigs and their journey from a defense housing project in boomtime Arizona to the high country of their Montana origins builds with the drama only real life can hold."
4 Stars
April 9, 2012
As a sometime writer, I am always humbled by Ivan Doig's rapturous rendering of human experience in the written word. His love of language is a perfect match for the sense of wonder he brings to whatever he's writing about, and he can spin what is often a simple idea into a lengthy interweaving of carefully observed details and nuances of feeling and gentle humor.
He does that here with a handful of letters written by his mother from Arizona and Montana to her brother on board a Navy destroyer in the Pacific during the closing months of WWII. They are also her own last months, dying as she does of heart failure in a high altitude sheep camp where she has been spending a summer with her husband and young son, the author. Doig generates pages of meaning and significance from single sentences in her letters, notably recreating one of her last days, herding sheep on horseback and alone, while husband and son travel to nearby Bozeman.
This is a short book compared to his other fiction and nonfiction, really more like an appendix to his memoir of growing up, "This House of Sky." It captures almost worshipfully the day-to-day reality of people living proudly and with determination on the margins of a rural wartime economy only beginning to recover from the Great Depression. Enjoyable also is Doig's gift for replicating the wry humor in the way they deal with and talk about life's vagaries. Highly recommended to readers of his other books, this is also an excellent introduction to Doig for those who haven't read him yet.
He does that here with a handful of letters written by his mother from Arizona and Montana to her brother on board a Navy destroyer in the Pacific during the closing months of WWII. They are also her own last months, dying as she does of heart failure in a high altitude sheep camp where she has been spending a summer with her husband and young son, the author. Doig generates pages of meaning and significance from single sentences in her letters, notably recreating one of her last days, herding sheep on horseback and alone, while husband and son travel to nearby Bozeman.
This is a short book compared to his other fiction and nonfiction, really more like an appendix to his memoir of growing up, "This House of Sky." It captures almost worshipfully the day-to-day reality of people living proudly and with determination on the margins of a rural wartime economy only beginning to recover from the Great Depression. Enjoyable also is Doig's gift for replicating the wry humor in the way they deal with and talk about life's vagaries. Highly recommended to readers of his other books, this is also an excellent introduction to Doig for those who haven't read him yet.
November 9, 2011
The author reminisces about his early childhood during the final months of World War II as his family moved from Montana to Arizona and back to Montana. Ivan Doig's mother passed away from an asthma attack on his sixth birthday in June, 1945. In the preceding months she had written a series of letters to her brother who was aboard the USS Ault in the Pacific. In the early 1990's this brother passed away and bequeathed his package of letters to his nephew Ivan, the author. The letters evoked in him memories and reminiscences about a mother he barely knew and yet who exerted a profound impact on his life. This experience persuaded Ivan, who was already an acclaimed author, to write this book.
Descriptions and depictions of landscapes, hardships, family, friends, and daily rural life from decades past are beautifully sculpted by Ivan Doig. But as much as I appreciate his mastery of the language and his ability to develop scenes and instill feelings, I kept expecting more significance and more meaning from his words. I wanted to feel, or at least understand, the strong feelings he must have experienced as he read these letters and wrote about his mother and about his past; but I feel that all I got was a mere glimpse.
Still, I very much enjoyed reading this. It is short at only about 150 pages, and well worth it.
Descriptions and depictions of landscapes, hardships, family, friends, and daily rural life from decades past are beautifully sculpted by Ivan Doig. But as much as I appreciate his mastery of the language and his ability to develop scenes and instill feelings, I kept expecting more significance and more meaning from his words. I wanted to feel, or at least understand, the strong feelings he must have experienced as he read these letters and wrote about his mother and about his past; but I feel that all I got was a mere glimpse.
Still, I very much enjoyed reading this. It is short at only about 150 pages, and well worth it.
February 11, 2020
Ivan Doig's mother died on Ivans 6th birthday. He remembers what he can about his mother. It's not enough. He discovers an old tin box, filled with her correspondence to family during the War years 1940-1945. He uses these letters in this book about his mother and family. The author writes in a lyrical style.
July 27, 2020
Everyone who is truly serious about reading should read at least one book by Ivan Doig. Reading for me is slow, because each sentence, each phrase in a Doig story is abundantly rich with content and meaning.
October 23, 2023
One of the many reasons why I love Ivan Doig is because of the way he brings you so fully into a place that you've never been before with nothing but words. Now I see that his mother also had the gift. This memoir is structured around her letters and is a beautiful homage to his mother, a remarkable woman whom he knew only six years.
I enjoyed this memoir even more than This House of Sky, though I love everything he writes. (I'm beginning to realize that one of my love languages is memoirs written by middle-aged men.)
I enjoyed this memoir even more than This House of Sky, though I love everything he writes. (I'm beginning to realize that one of my love languages is memoirs written by middle-aged men.)
March 3, 2023
Bittersweet and poignant. Beautiful and moving descriptions of Montana.
July 15, 2024
This is a prequel to This House of Sky, written after House of Sky when Doig was given a packet of letters written by his late mother. I've not read This House of Sky, and that may have affected my enjoyment of this short book.
This is the story of Doig's early life, recalled through memories evoked by the letters an uncle left him when then uncle died. They are letters Doig's mother wrote to her brother, telling him about her breathing ailment, moving from place to place, her husband looking for work, and little Ivan growing. Not a lot happens on a grand scale. This is really the story about a young boy and his mother and the love they shared. As such, it is a good story, but likely won't appeal to many outside of Doig's hardcore fans.
This is the story of Doig's early life, recalled through memories evoked by the letters an uncle left him when then uncle died. They are letters Doig's mother wrote to her brother, telling him about her breathing ailment, moving from place to place, her husband looking for work, and little Ivan growing. Not a lot happens on a grand scale. This is really the story about a young boy and his mother and the love they shared. As such, it is a good story, but likely won't appeal to many outside of Doig's hardcore fans.
January 11, 2023
My first encounter with Ivan Doig was 15 or more years ago when I randomly picked up a copy of his memoir This House of Sky. That book has stayed with me, and I've enjoyed reading his novels since then.
This wasn't my favorite of his work, but I don't think it's fair for me to rate it, because I don't feel I gave it the time it deserves. Doig really requires me to slow down and savor the written word, putting myself in the time and place he writes about.
If I were to recommend his work to others (which I do!), I wouldn't start here, but this offers more backstory on his family and early life.
This wasn't my favorite of his work, but I don't think it's fair for me to rate it, because I don't feel I gave it the time it deserves. Doig really requires me to slow down and savor the written word, putting myself in the time and place he writes about.
If I were to recommend his work to others (which I do!), I wouldn't start here, but this offers more backstory on his family and early life.
February 1, 2015
What a great idea: to write a memoir of one's boyhood, reconstructed from memory and a cache of letters between his deceased mother and her brother, the writer's uncle. This is a glimpse into early-mid-century Americana, with ultra-rural ranch life to the war years in a ghetto boomtown of factory Arizona. However, I ran out of patience with this promising book.
Although his descriptions of landscape and relationship are poignant and evocative, Ivan Doig gets in his own way. It's almost as if he's trying too hard to pen memorable turns of phrase, and I became frustrated. Here's an early example, which is enjoyable, but picture this in every paragraph:
"The escaped Germans to not devour us in our Christmas Eve beds - hightailing it to nonbelligerent Mexico seems more what they had in mind - and so we climb out to the day itself and its presents. Up out of the fiber of that boy who became me, can't my Christmas gift prospects be readily dreamed?" All this to say, he got up Christmas morning and was delighted by the amazing surprise his uncle gave him.
In that vein, I'd say this book is too purply wrought. I loved The Whistling Season by Doig, but Heart Earth was not for me.
Although his descriptions of landscape and relationship are poignant and evocative, Ivan Doig gets in his own way. It's almost as if he's trying too hard to pen memorable turns of phrase, and I became frustrated. Here's an early example, which is enjoyable, but picture this in every paragraph:
"The escaped Germans to not devour us in our Christmas Eve beds - hightailing it to nonbelligerent Mexico seems more what they had in mind - and so we climb out to the day itself and its presents. Up out of the fiber of that boy who became me, can't my Christmas gift prospects be readily dreamed?" All this to say, he got up Christmas morning and was delighted by the amazing surprise his uncle gave him.
In that vein, I'd say this book is too purply wrought. I loved The Whistling Season by Doig, but Heart Earth was not for me.
January 15, 2015
I read This House of Sky years ago, and didn't really like it. While well written, the languid prose left me with an impression of impressions, kind of like trying to make out the details in a very faded photograph. The characters, including Doig himself, remained mysterious. I was unsatisfied.
Heart Earth was better. Perhaps in part because it was more succint, and in another part because Doig had something concrete to write from, other than his own waning memories: His mother's letters.
After she died when Doig was barely six years old, he thought his mother always would remain unknown and unknowable to him, until he discovered a cache of letters she had written to her brother. The letters give insight into her thoughts, feelings, and actions during Doig's childhood, and spur his latent memories of her and the short time that Doig had a "conventional" family life.
I can't imagine what an emotional rush it must have been for Doig to find these letters out of the blue, which after many decades finally conjured this unknown woman into the light. In his rendering she is beautiful, adventurous, and fascinating.
Heart Earth was better. Perhaps in part because it was more succint, and in another part because Doig had something concrete to write from, other than his own waning memories: His mother's letters.
After she died when Doig was barely six years old, he thought his mother always would remain unknown and unknowable to him, until he discovered a cache of letters she had written to her brother. The letters give insight into her thoughts, feelings, and actions during Doig's childhood, and spur his latent memories of her and the short time that Doig had a "conventional" family life.
I can't imagine what an emotional rush it must have been for Doig to find these letters out of the blue, which after many decades finally conjured this unknown woman into the light. In his rendering she is beautiful, adventurous, and fascinating.
January 15, 2014
I in fact loved listening to this book. Why? Because I came to understand the real events that the author has drawn in his books of fiction AND simply because of the way the author expresses himself. There is humor and poignancy and the western dialect is fun too. You simply must read this book if you have read his books of fiction. It is really better than his books of fiction.
But it is too short. I am so very tired of short books, and maybe that is why I didn't give it more stars. Very unjust!
This is non-fiction about the author's early ears growing up in Montana and a bit in Arizona. It is about his formative years. Then his mother died when he was only six. One might complain that this cannot be classified as non-fiction, because although it is based on letters between his Mom and uncle there is no way one can know for sure the emotions and feelings expressed. I am not too picky about this, but I thought it should be mentioned.
Narration by Tom Stechschulte was wonderful; he so well evokes the Western drawl!
But it is too short. I am so very tired of short books, and maybe that is why I didn't give it more stars. Very unjust!
This is non-fiction about the author's early ears growing up in Montana and a bit in Arizona. It is about his formative years. Then his mother died when he was only six. One might complain that this cannot be classified as non-fiction, because although it is based on letters between his Mom and uncle there is no way one can know for sure the emotions and feelings expressed. I am not too picky about this, but I thought it should be mentioned.
Narration by Tom Stechschulte was wonderful; he so well evokes the Western drawl!
October 3, 2012
This is a prequel to Ivan Doig's memoir House of Sky, a book that I haven't read and I'm not sure I will. I listened to the audio version of this because I wasn't sure I'd like his writing. I thought at first, that I should have read House of Sky because I kept losing interest in the narrative, but as I listened I realized I'm not a big fan of Doig's voice. I'm not sure I could take another book filled with tons of metaphors and similies and not much story. The sentences were well crafted but it wasn't enough for me. Heart Earth was inspired by letters Doig's mother sent to her brother during World War II. Scenes and conversations are recreated by Doig and to me this takes great liberty with the "memoir" category. The descriptions of the landscape were compelling but without a strong story, I find it hard to move forward in a book. Hard to decide between two and three stars for this one.
October 6, 2015
Letters can be treasures. In this case, a surprising discovery of letters written by Doig's mother gave him some powerful insights into the mind and heart of the mother he lost on his 6th birthday.
This loving memoir of the time he was very young is captivating reading. Doig is professional enough not to sugar coat uncomfortable things about his parents and family.
Having just read "Last Bus to Wisdom", I can see where life feeds fiction. --Save those old letters and journals!
This loving memoir of the time he was very young is captivating reading. Doig is professional enough not to sugar coat uncomfortable things about his parents and family.
Having just read "Last Bus to Wisdom", I can see where life feeds fiction. --Save those old letters and journals!
August 18, 2015
This is the second time I've read this book. The first time it made me burst out in tears. I did not cry the second time, but I was moved. I'm always amazed at Ivan Doig's unique way with words, and he got me laughing throughout with his droll humor, and the things his parents said to each other. A love story of both people and land.
February 18, 2017
Ivan Doig's tribute to his Montana frontier woman mom who died on his sixth birthday. Based on letters his mom wrote to her brother serving in WWII, and interviews with family and neighbors, early Montana ranch life is interesting but book is overwritten. Lengthy descriptions of Montana's scenic beauty are tedious. Doig is one of my favorite writers but this is not one of his better books.
February 9, 2016
I love the way Ivan Doig writes, lyrically and concisely evoking a whole world of feeling; he sees such humor, poetry, and intensity in each moment and place. Somehow he notices everything.. A sweet, sad, funny memoir of his childhood and his mother.
January 2, 2022
I am a fan of Doig's fiction, having read 5 of his books, but I was looking for something short to finish off the year and had this on my shelf, at 156 pages. The premise is good! He had already written about his family in This House of Sky (which I have not read yet) but his mother died when he was 6 and he had only the vaguest of memories. I take it that his father and grandmother were not very forthcoming. Years later, his uncle, who knew he was looking for more about his mother, but was on bad terms with him and so withheld them, gifted him a clutch of letters from her when he died, written during the second World War while he was on a Navy ship. So Doig is going to flesh out his autobiography with these first hand accounts from his mother. The book cover says, "--and through her letters, a hopeful, strong, wise and witty woman whose voice prompted a re-envisioning of Doig's past."
Sounds great! But all we got were snippets of her letters and I'm telling you. They were nothing to write home about! Or in this case, a book about!
One example: "There are many disadvantages to farming in some parts of Montana. Some times there is alkali ground and in other places jumbo soil and then the chinook winds and grasshoppers and all different kinds of insects and some times not enough rainfall." Hmmm. That really filled me in on her indefatigable character! About her husband, "His stomach bothers him all the time. He is so thin. I'm worried to death about Charlie." Well, a little more personal. She is writing to her little brother, after all.
To be truthful, I almost quit after 20 pages, because I could hardly understand the book! But it got easier and I started underlining phrases and sentences I liked. Doig is a more literary writer than I remembered from his Montana sagas. I really liked the funny parts.
"Allen entertained himself with them; he thought up a name for every cow he had and spent the time to teach each one to come running when summoned. My parents were not predisposed to like ritzy cow-naming neighbors, but Allen and for that matter Winnie were so puckish about their own highfalutin tendencies that they were hard not to be fond of."
"My parents keep trying to figure out how many acres, how many MILES, of the Sonora desert {they are in Arizona now} each gaunt beef has to range across in a day; the things look like they'd eat the eyebrows off you."
"Ever since Dad came out of the hospital {for a nearly ruptured appendix} I have stayed as close to him as a sidecar, because you never know." This reminds me of my mother, who caught her own mother trying to sneak out on the family in the middle of the night, and forever after, my mother felt she had to keep a very close eye on her.
"My father has been eyeing the {stray} dog as if pretty sure it's next trick will be to pick our pockets."
But my problem with this book is that I've been sold on the romance of the old West and the homesteading idea, partly due to Doig's books! You know, I picture Little House on the Prairie, with everybody's hair clean, and Mama in a starched apron, and the cabin tidy, and the horses shined up.....but this book gave me such a poverty-stricken, dirty, almost sordid, look at homesteading and trying to make it ranching in Montana. Dirty, just dirty. Mud everywhere, trapping whole cars. I'm not saying they weren't as clean as it was possible to be, but honestly, with only one room most of the time, abundant mud outside, no running water, no hot water unless they boiled it, and just desperate poverty, you know they weren't washing their hair everyday, and it had to be pretty grimy. They were just surviving. I doubt there was anything of beauty or comfort inside their shacks. Of course, they did have the views outside! And I'm not saying this as a cossetted 21st century woman, who is going to go Ewww! to spiders and no bath----I camped a lot in my youth and young adulthood and had no problem with it----but somehow, it was depressing and I felt sorry for them and the whole system, and how HARD it was. My own great grandparents were Montana homesteaders and I liked to think of them like the families in "Englishman's Creek". I hate to think of it being so hard, although I think I would have relished the challenge....for a while...
I did notice in the book that he is recounting things that happened when he was 6 years old, and I tell you, I remember very little of my 6 yr old self, so he was either fleshing out what he read in the letters, or he got some help, but I think his own grandmother and father were already dead by the time he wrote this...? But, for instance, on his mother's last day, I think she did tell her husband all about her day sheepherding {while they drove the hired sheepherder to town}, and then she did write to her brother that night, about the gifts that Charlie and Ivan brought her. So Doig's father might have earlier told his son all about his mother's last day without them. Now he finally has her first hand account of it.
I'm glad for Doig that he got this written down (and of course, THRILLED for him that he got his mother's letters!) but for me, I was just kind of demoralized and depressed about it.
Sounds great! But all we got were snippets of her letters and I'm telling you. They were nothing to write home about! Or in this case, a book about!
One example: "There are many disadvantages to farming in some parts of Montana. Some times there is alkali ground and in other places jumbo soil and then the chinook winds and grasshoppers and all different kinds of insects and some times not enough rainfall." Hmmm. That really filled me in on her indefatigable character! About her husband, "His stomach bothers him all the time. He is so thin. I'm worried to death about Charlie." Well, a little more personal. She is writing to her little brother, after all.
To be truthful, I almost quit after 20 pages, because I could hardly understand the book! But it got easier and I started underlining phrases and sentences I liked. Doig is a more literary writer than I remembered from his Montana sagas. I really liked the funny parts.
"Allen entertained himself with them; he thought up a name for every cow he had and spent the time to teach each one to come running when summoned. My parents were not predisposed to like ritzy cow-naming neighbors, but Allen and for that matter Winnie were so puckish about their own highfalutin tendencies that they were hard not to be fond of."
"My parents keep trying to figure out how many acres, how many MILES, of the Sonora desert {they are in Arizona now} each gaunt beef has to range across in a day; the things look like they'd eat the eyebrows off you."
"Ever since Dad came out of the hospital {for a nearly ruptured appendix} I have stayed as close to him as a sidecar, because you never know." This reminds me of my mother, who caught her own mother trying to sneak out on the family in the middle of the night, and forever after, my mother felt she had to keep a very close eye on her.
"My father has been eyeing the {stray} dog as if pretty sure it's next trick will be to pick our pockets."
But my problem with this book is that I've been sold on the romance of the old West and the homesteading idea, partly due to Doig's books! You know, I picture Little House on the Prairie, with everybody's hair clean, and Mama in a starched apron, and the cabin tidy, and the horses shined up.....but this book gave me such a poverty-stricken, dirty, almost sordid, look at homesteading and trying to make it ranching in Montana. Dirty, just dirty. Mud everywhere, trapping whole cars. I'm not saying they weren't as clean as it was possible to be, but honestly, with only one room most of the time, abundant mud outside, no running water, no hot water unless they boiled it, and just desperate poverty, you know they weren't washing their hair everyday, and it had to be pretty grimy. They were just surviving. I doubt there was anything of beauty or comfort inside their shacks. Of course, they did have the views outside! And I'm not saying this as a cossetted 21st century woman, who is going to go Ewww! to spiders and no bath----I camped a lot in my youth and young adulthood and had no problem with it----but somehow, it was depressing and I felt sorry for them and the whole system, and how HARD it was. My own great grandparents were Montana homesteaders and I liked to think of them like the families in "Englishman's Creek". I hate to think of it being so hard, although I think I would have relished the challenge....for a while...
I did notice in the book that he is recounting things that happened when he was 6 years old, and I tell you, I remember very little of my 6 yr old self, so he was either fleshing out what he read in the letters, or he got some help, but I think his own grandmother and father were already dead by the time he wrote this...? But, for instance, on his mother's last day, I think she did tell her husband all about her day sheepherding {while they drove the hired sheepherder to town}, and then she did write to her brother that night, about the gifts that Charlie and Ivan brought her. So Doig's father might have earlier told his son all about his mother's last day without them. Now he finally has her first hand account of it.
I'm glad for Doig that he got this written down (and of course, THRILLED for him that he got his mother's letters!) but for me, I was just kind of demoralized and depressed about it.
May 27, 2017
I struggled through the beginning of this little but extremely wordy biography of writer Ivan Doig's own mother, assembled from memories and a packet of letters that she sent to her brother, Wally, who was away at sea during World War II. Doig loves words and language so much, and he has been versant since a very young age, that only the most devoted reader can wade through his sentences, which sometimes seem more adjective than action. However, I stuck with it and got used to his style and began to feel his characters, the proud and hardscrabble Doig family. I did find his descriptions of the Montana mountains and views somewhat ponderous and unrelatable, but as I learned more about how his family persisted through less-than-perfect health, stubborn and overpossessive in-laws, and the very challenging life's work of high ranching, I couldn't help but be impressed by their story. As difficult as their circumstances, their love of nature, of wide-open spaces, and their commitment to hard work, made them impressive people. I'm glad I read it.
November 15, 2018
The past year has me reading some incredible books about America set in early to mid last Century. Books like, Dalva, Maud's Line, All the Pretty Horses and even Monkey Wrench Gang have been stellar books about the Land of America and the people that scratch out livings amongst the crushing setting of USA as a country that marches forward while leaving it's people behind. More like it trods on them, or uses them as those logs they believe ancient peoples used to roll big blocks of stone about..
I'm off topic.
Turns out there's this Author Ivan Doig, and he's written a beautiful book about his parents and life in Montana and Arizona during WW2. It's an ode to family in hardship and the land that makes this country so special. For me, it holds a magnifying glass to our spoiled present living conditions, while inspiring me to visit the land that we are destroying. His words are sincere and knowledgable and very poetic. He is not a phony, but someone who grew up on the land. I will definitely be reading more of his work.
I'm off topic.
Turns out there's this Author Ivan Doig, and he's written a beautiful book about his parents and life in Montana and Arizona during WW2. It's an ode to family in hardship and the land that makes this country so special. For me, it holds a magnifying glass to our spoiled present living conditions, while inspiring me to visit the land that we are destroying. His words are sincere and knowledgable and very poetic. He is not a phony, but someone who grew up on the land. I will definitely be reading more of his work.
October 11, 2018
Author Ivan Doig's book, Heart Earth, is a memoir based on his early years with his parents during the family's struggles in the rural West during the World War II Era. The characters' lives evolve as they struggle for livelihood in eastern Montana, and in Arizona, blending a melange of time, people and place. Foreshadowing warns of loss and heartbreak to come, as the family deals with their challenges. Doig used letters written by the mother he only knew during early childhood, to fill in and build her story and character.
Personally, I write and enjoy reading a more direct or journalistic style. I was sidetracked by the author's literary rambling, which became cumbersome. Perhaps his intention was to immerse the reader in the beauty of the landscape. Although I lost track of the story at times, I appreciate the land and cultural portrayed. Ultimately, the book is an important preservation of place and time.
Personally, I write and enjoy reading a more direct or journalistic style. I was sidetracked by the author's literary rambling, which became cumbersome. Perhaps his intention was to immerse the reader in the beauty of the landscape. Although I lost track of the story at times, I appreciate the land and cultural portrayed. Ultimately, the book is an important preservation of place and time.
November 5, 2018
I am a big fan of Ivan Doig, but this was just not his best work. Tried way too hard to hit the highfalutin' poetry-prose. Got tiresome. The book was written after Doig inherited some letters from his mother to his uncle during WWII, so it was, ostensibly, the telling fo a story he really didn't have access to before. There was not enough of the letters, and much of the story wasn't very believable, because he recounts in great detail experiences he had when he was not yet six. Maybe he can remember much better than I, but if so, then it seems he would have been perfectly able to tell this story without the letters, and the incidents ought to have appeared in his earlier memoir. Don't write him off on the basis of this--the rest of his work is wonderful. But you can afford to give this a miss.
February 6, 2018
This was a short read, and I guess happenstantially I have read 2 non-fiction books by Doig. He really does enjoy an eloquence of wording that takes a while to find the rhythm of, but is full of heart and care for his subject and story. This auto-biographical look into his early childhood through the letters written to his uncle during the Second World War is touching and heartfelt. He struggles with his early memories of growing up in his family and life with his mother and father that changed very quickly for him at a young age. Doig’s writing can be a bit over the top and overly grandiose, but he is a heartfelt storyteller who weaves a lovely yarn about his own life and I am glad to have read this offering by him.
May 23, 2021
I really don't like to say this, but I hated this book. I listened to the audible version and I could not get past the first 15 minutes. I even went back and re-listened to certain parts, but this book was too frustrating to listen to. The run on sentences drove me crazy. Several people in my book club had issues with the run on sentences as well, though those who read the paper book said it was easier to read then to listen to. Given that I'm willing to try reading the paper back and see if I like it better. A friend suggested that the sentences seem lyrical and maybe it was meant to be a song to his mother. Maybe singing will make the book easier to read. I definitely wouldn't recommend listening to it.
October 16, 2022
What a touching story. Although, I've researched Ivan Doig's story. Reading facts is a lot different that reading the story he tells about his life... or actually, his mother's life.
He was only 6 when his mother passed. She died on his birthday. What a story of how he came to have his mother's letters. I guess every family has rifts in it. It was inspiring to see how his father and grandmother sort of mended their relationship so as to help raise Ivan. A lesson many of us could learn.. before it's too late.
He was only 6 when his mother passed. She died on his birthday. What a story of how he came to have his mother's letters. I guess every family has rifts in it. It was inspiring to see how his father and grandmother sort of mended their relationship so as to help raise Ivan. A lesson many of us could learn.. before it's too late.
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