English Creek

Two Medicine Trilogy #1

by Ivan Doig, Scott Sowers (Narrator)

Part of Ivan Doig’s acclaimed Montana trilogy, English Creek revolves around Jick McCaskill, a 14-year-old growing up in 1930s Montana. This incandescent coming-of-age tale dramatizes the climatic events of one summer that inevitably mark Jick’s awakening from childhood to adulthood. Through his eyes we see those nearest and dearest to him at a turning point - "where all four of our lives made their bend" - and discover along with him his own connection to the land, to history, and to the deep-fathomed mysteries of one's kin and one's self.

©1984 Ivan Doig (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Westerns, Audiobook, Book Club, Coming Of Age, Historical

Audiobook

First published October 24, 1984

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

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found English Creek even better than Dancing at the Rascal Fair, which is a favorite with many, not just me. The weird thing is that "English Creek" is the first of the series but chronologically it follows "Dancing at the Rascal Fair". I think it is better to read it after "Dancing at the Rascal Fair"! Ride With Me, Mariah Montana is the next one I will pick up. Check out all of the "Two Medicine County" series: http://www.goodreads.com/series/10271....

I love the way Ivan Doig captures the essential both in physical descriptions of the land, the dialog between people and what is essentially important in life. Some compare him to Wallace Stegner, but I think he is MUCH better. There is marvelous humor in Doig's writing.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my second title by Doig, but my first sample of his fiction. After I read his memoir This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind when I first returned to Arizona, I just had to get more of his work so I ordered what is called the Montana Trilogy. English Creek, originally published in 1984, is considered the first of this trilogy.

This book is narrated by a man of undetermined age looking back to the summer he was fourteen, and relates all of the life-changing experiences that happened during that short space of time: an older brother who makes a decision that completely disrupts the family routine, the narrator facing both mysteries from the past and worries of the future. The summer seems to fly by, so much happens to all of us during those few short weeks.

And it does happen to all of us. Doig's way with words draws the reader into the story to experience for themselves the glory of the Montana mountains, the smell of the forest, the blisters during haying season.

I remember when I wrote my review of the author's memoir, I said that it was a book that should not be rushed through, it should be savored. This book was the same, even though I naturally found myself zipping through it, entirely caught up in the glory of Wanting To Know What Happens Next. But even at that pace I absolutely loved the feel of the book: the world it created, the characters I met, the vision of life lived a different way than most of us know about.

This was a wonderful book. I am so glad to have discovered this author, and of course I have rushed off to order more of his work!

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

From forest fires to sheep counts, haying season to a whizbang Fourth of July celebration, Jick McCaskill moves through the summer of 1939 in Montana's Two Medicine country. For Jick it's "The Summer When..." He begins noticing a lot of things, including the fact that "time is the trickiest damn commodity," and he won't be a boy for very much longer.

Full of charm and drollery, English Creek is not for the easily bored, but it's worth the patience if you want to see how an author can sometimes make the language get up and dance. The characters are vivid and the vernacular sublime. Some of the one-liners might make you wish you had occasion to recycle them.
My favorite line comes when one guy goes up on a rock outcropping to relieve himself and Jick's father says, "I hope you've got a good foothold up there. Because you sure don't have all that much of a handhold." (Ouch!)

If you find this book too slow moving but you want a taste of Doig's magic, pick up The Whistling Season. It's a masterpiece of storytelling.

[Rita · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I appreciate the attraction of this story is the Montana Lore and coming of age trick, I found this book doggedly hard to read. I felt I was being lectured. The basic rule of good writing is consistently violated: 'show, don't tell.' Some delightful imagery did not substitute for lack of action. I read this book as a book club selection and therefore committed to finishing, but I passed over many pages of pure, repetitive description. My instincts tell me this book/story should have been condensed into a short story.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ivan Doig is a favorite author, but I found this to be a disappointing book.

It had a pretty good beginning (from chapter 1): “The fracture of a family is not a thing that happens clean and sharp, so that you can at least calculate that from here on in it will begin to be over with. No, it is like one of those worst bone breaks, a shatter. You can mend the place, peg it and splint it and work to strengthen it, and while the surface maybe can be brought to look much as it did before, the deeper vicinity of shatter always remains a spot that has to be favored.” And I liked this line: “No marriage is strong enough to bear two loads of in-laws.”

This is a coming of age story set in Montana in the 1930s. There is a lot of great imagery. I like the account of 14-year-old Jick digging for the new outhouse. (I still don’t understand the comment about a two-holer being polite.) Author Wallace Stegner says “It is like a long, strenuous working vacation in new country to read this novel.” Long and strenuous, yes; but definitely not a vacation. The profanity was incredibly distasteful and I felt really had no literary purpose. I stopped reading about half-way through.

[JULIE · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I want to burn through a book because I need to see what’s going to happen. Other books seem to drag out forever because of an uncompelling plot or characters I don't care about, and I might not even finish those books for lack of interest.

Then there's Ivan Doig's English Creek. Beautifully written, the story languidly moves along through the main character, Jick MacGaskill, who is looking back on the boy he was at 14, growing up as the son of a forest ranger in the mountains outside of Gros Ventre, Montana.

At first I thought the slow pace was because my life these days is too chaotic to focus on reading. While that's true to a point, the other truth is that I didn't want to hurry through Doig's story. If I had skimmed through Jick's memories of the town as he rides in on Mouse, his father's horse, I might have missed something of what life was like in a small town in Montana in the late 1930s: the cottonwood trees lining the streets, Helwig's grocery and merc with its "old-style wooden square front"; the Toggery clothing store, "terra cotta along its top like cake frosting"; Musgreave's drugstore "with the mirror behind the soda fountain so that a person could sit there over a milkshake...and keep track of the town traffic."

The plot unfolds without haste through Jick’s eyes and memory, the events of his story set in the summer of 1939, the year before World War II begins in Europe, just before his world—and ours—changes forever.

Doig’s stories are not for the impatient reader. The sentences are crafted with love for the language in true literary style. My kind of author!

[Book Concierge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a coming-of-age story set in Depression-era Montana. It’s the first published book, though in chronological order it is book two, in Doig’s Two Medicine Trilogy, which chronicles the McCaskill family over several generations. Jick McCaskill tells the story of his youth, focusing on the summer of 1939, when he was fourteen, and his family faced some challenges: “where all four of our lives made their bend.”

Doig really puts the reader into the era and landscape of this novel. The sky is vast, the landscape majestic, the weather sometimes brutal, and the dangers – both natural and man-made – palpable.

Jick is a keen observer, if sometimes perplexed. I love his descriptions of various events – accompanying his father as he “counts” the sheep, helping a wounded camp tender, tasting his first alcohol, enjoying the Fourth of July town picnic and rodeo. And I love how he’s so “consumed” by food. This boy is ALWAYS hungry! He’s also curious and continues to question those around him trying to ferret out the information he needs to piece together the puzzle that is his family’s history. He’s young enough that he still feels “responsible” for many things that happen, and consequently naïve enough to think he can affect the outcome with a well-chosen word.

There were times when Doig’s work made me think on my own father, and how he taught us love of the land and nature. That made the book all the more enjoyable for me.

[Belle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 5 and here’s why. I love a teenage boy narrator when it’s done so right as this. Jick is as honest and forthright as a kid that age can be and more importantly highly observant. Not every teen boy is but I know a few personally who are. If you take the time to listen to them when you stumble on them you will never quite think the same again.

This book is that. He tells the story of the summer when his whole family takes a bend. It is 1930s Montana and his father is a forest ranger.

There is plenty of forest life description and more haymaking than maybe I needed but that’s just the point I make above. When you stumble on one of those teenage boys that is a keen observer you are going to have to ferret out the observations in and amongst a lot of words about haymaking.

Be patient and this story will not disappoint.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Freedom Of Space And A Toll Of Mind And Muscle

Ivan Doig's (1939 -- 2015) writings celebrate the United States, the American West, and the State of Montana. His novel "English Creek" (1984) the first book in his Montana Trilogy is both a coming of age story and a detailed portrayal of northern Montana and its people and places. The novel is set in 1939 in Northwest Montana as the state is slowly coming out of the Depression. The book is narrated in the first person by Jick McCaskill, age 60, forty-six years after the events it describes. The aging Jick looks back on the pivotal events of the summer of his fourteenth year with the wisdom that sometimes comes with maturity. With his wisdom and capacities for reflection, Jick writes in a colloquial, punchy style with many one-liners and salty, irreverent language.

Much of the novel is a coming of age story of young Jick, whose family includes his father Varick McCaskill, a ranger for the Forest Service, his independent mother, Beth, and his eighteen year old brother, Alec. The novel's story is set out in the first few pages. Alex brings his 17-year old girlfriend, Leona, a ravishing blonde, home for dinner and announces that he and Leona plan to marry. He proposes to support himself by working as a cowboy at menial wages for the local wealthy rancher. Alec's parents are dismayed as they have high hopes for their older son and have sacrificed so that he may attend college. The family fractures over this incident which is developed throughout the novel. The younger son, Jick,is in the middle of the process just, in early adolescence, beginning to get an understanding of himself and others.

Doig's novel tells the story of the McCaskills and of their friends and neighbors in rural areas and small towns. But this is only part of the book. Jick's coming of age and the McCaskill story is told against the backdrop of Montana. A strong theme of the book is that individuals are made by the particular families and communities in which they grow up. Doig's novel shows Montana, its geography, its economy, and its people in extensive detail.

The book is organized into three large parts telling the story of Jick through the summer of 1939 followed by a fourth shorter chapter in which the 60-year old Jick discusses events subsequent to his story. In the early part of the book Jick accompanies his father on his rounds before the pair meet a mysterious man, Stanley, from his father's past. With his father's permission, Jick accompanies Stanley on his mission of herding sheep. The mountains, the climate, the life of shepherding are described painstakingly and at length with beautifully textured prose. The second part of the book recounts a series of events on the Fourth of July in a small Montana town. These events include a picnic, a rodeo and a square dance, all of which are described at length in extensive and realistic detail. The final climactic chapter begins with a long treatment of haying on a Montana farm and works to an extended description of a near-catastrophic forest fire and of the efforts needed to bring it under control. Before the short final chapter, the book concludes with the beginning of WW II in Europe.

The lengthy descriptions of places and activities make "English Creek" slow reading indeed. Doig has obvious love for the people and places of Montana, and he writes to preserve his memory of place and try to have the reader understand his love. The result is that the story line sometimes is neglected through the lengthy depictions of places and people. The book requires a great deal of patience to read, and I found it necessary to take frequent breaks and to read only a few pages at a time.

With the deliberateness of the pace, I found myself loving this book and engaged with the characters and the story. I fell in love with Montana, a state I knew only in passing from some work experience long ago and from a long train ride last year on Amtrak's "Empire Builder". I came to feel Doig's love for the state and for a way of life, in its particulars, not my own. Allowing readers to see a way of life not their own is part of the function of good literature.

Much of this book is made by Doig's writing, which is a mix of the sharp and the reflective. Here is an example of the latter from late in the book is Jick reflects on the loneliness, individualism, and precariousness of the life of Montana settlers.

"The sense of emptiness all around made me ponder the isolation these early people, my father's parents among them, landed themselves into here. Even when the car arrived into this corner of the Two Medicine country, mud and rutted roads made going anywhere no easy task. To say nothing of what winter could do. Some years the snow here drifted up and up until it covered the fenceposts and left you guessing in depth beyond that. No, these homesteaders of Scotch Heaven did not know what they were getting into. But once in, how many cherished this land as their own, whatever its conditions? It is one of these matters hard to balance out. Distance and isolation create a freedom of sorts. The space to move in according to your own whims and bents. From my father's stories and Toussaint Rennie's, I knew of Scotch Heaveners who retreated into the dimness of their homestead cabins, and the worse darkness of their own minds. Others who simply got out, walked away from the years of homestead effort. Still others who carried it with them into successful ranching. Then there were the least lucky who took their dilemma, a freedom of space and a toll of mind and muscle, to the grave with them."

This book makes for long, difficult reading. I found the book an excellent companion for these times of pandemic, being at home alone. Perhaps this situation bears some relationship to the isolation experienced by the homesteaders Doig describes. More importantly, the book reminded me of love of one's home and surroundings and of our country. Americans can always use more of these qualities.

Robin Friedman

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ivan Doig may be an regional writer, but his themes are universal. Summer, 1939 in Montana comes alive through the eyes of 14-year-old Jick McCaskell, and we experience his life on the ranch, at the community picnic and 4th of July Rodeo, haying, and finally through the deadly forest fire. There are lots of Depression-era details and history, but this is really a tale of family, land, and landscape and the roles they play in a young man's life. Family dominates; his brother, who has taken up cowboying for a rancher set on owning the county and has fallen in love with a girl and wants to marry her rather than go to college, is estranged from the family; his father works for the forest service and enlists Jick's help, sometimes on unpleasant tasks; his mother runs the house and is surprisingly eloquent and outspoken when she speaks at the 4th of July picnic about Mr. English for whom the creek is named--but this is Montana, a area ripe for female empowerment. Jick, as the younger son, observes, is fascinated with the history of the area and of his family, and proves an insightful narrator. The West is all about the land and who owns it and how best to use it, and that figures here, although controversy between sheep owners and cattlemen is surprisingly mild. We see the landscape, the terrain, through Jick's eyes, and discovers its beauties and its dangers. The story moves at a leisurely pace, with an urgent battle against fire at the end; characters are flawed and well-drawn; storyline is cinematic, layered, eventful, and issue-filled; historical and setting details frame the novel; language is descriptive, dialog-rich with memorably colorful jargon interspersed; and the tone is bittersweet, nostalgic as he looks back over this pivotal summer, thoughtful. A book that reminds me of all I love about Doig--his descriptions, characters, language. Now I need to read--or, even better, listen to read by favorite narrator Tom Stechschulte--This House of Sky, his memoir and western writings. Doig is a magical storyteller; I wish we had had this to listen to in Montana in July, driving on the Ivan Doig Memorial Highway. Many similarities to Maclean's A River Runs Through it, which my summer book group read earlier this summer.

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well I didn't expect this. The subject matter and setting would leave one expecting a plain spoken book with taciturn people, perhaps emphasizing plot and local color over style. But Doig is a beautiful stylist, one of those writers you can enjoy just for his sentences and surprising phrases, not just the larger work.

The story is about Jick, a fourteen-year-old in Montana trying to navigate a summer working with his father in the forest service (in a place where fires are the great concern), exploring the history of the relationship between his parents and a mysterious local drunk, and getting used to the departure of his brother, a bright young man who wants to settle for dead end work as a cowhand and early marriage to a local beauty. The plot is a bit pokey, as befits 1930s Montana, and it's clear from the beginning that the story will probably culminate with a fire, but Doig creates a great atmosphere, and Jick is an original, an eloquent, bright kid just coming into his own in a place where one expects someone different.

Doig is one of those writers I've been meaning to get to for years, and now that I've tried him, I will be back.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I LOVED The Last Bus to Wisdom and although this has a similar tone to it, it didn't resonate as much. Another coming of age story, this is about 15 year old Jake who is growing up in Montana during the 1930's. The beauty behind this story is the description of the setting. The country is suffering from the Depression and even the sheep and cattle farmers in Montana are struggling. Jake's father is a forest ranger and the whole concept of National Parks is relatively new. I definitely enjoyed reliving a piece of that part of history. But the story, although sweet, was a bit slow and although the characters are quirky and interesting, there wasn't that much growth. But, if you are looking for a quiet gentle read, this might be it.

[Jim Leffert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This middle book of Doig’s trilogy about the McCaskill family of Montana lacks the abundance of sharp humor and eventual emotional punch of its predecessor, Dancing at the Rascal Fair. Still, if you were hooked by the first book and possess a moderate to high Sitzfleisch Quotient to keep you parked in your chair, you may want to plow through it, and, moreover, you may feel rewarded. The story leisurely unfolds over the summer of 1939 through the eyes of almost 15-year old John Angus “Jick” McCaskill, grandson of Rob McCaskill, this family’s first settler in the Two Medicines Country.

Over the course of the summer, Jick guides a temperamental pack horse on a journey into the forest, helps with the hay harvest, digs a new outhouse, and hears a plethora of wisecracks at the town rodeo. Jick also begins to decipher some of the puzzles of the adult world of relationships such as: 1) Can the rift be mended between his older brother Alec, who is determined to try his luck as a cowboy and marry his sweetheart Leona, and his parents, who just as emphatically want Alec to get a college education? 2) How did Stanley Meixell, the straight talking and energetic ranger who set up the Two Medicines National Forest 30 years before end up as a drunken old codger? Furthermore, what is behind the strange tone of interaction between Stanley and Jick’s father, who is the current Forest Ranger?

English Creek brings the Two Medicines Country to life for us and also offers the reader an “up close and personal” view of the impact of the Depression on rural Montana. Many of the original sheepherders whom we got to know in the first book are gone, driven out of business by low prices and demand, their homesteads foreclosed, and their properties gobbled up by the banks and by corporate interests, represented here by the grasping Double W Ranch, where Alec works. Perhaps the most dramatic part of the book is an eloquent speech that Jick’s mother delivers at the July Fourth celebration, decrying this growing class divide.

[Oscar · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Verano en English Creek’, de Ivan Doig, tiene muchas semejanzas con ‘Una temporada para silbar’, su anterior novela publicada en castellano. Jick McCaskill, el narrador, rememora desde la vejez y la nostalgia lo acontecido en aquel verano de 1939, cuando tenía casi quince años. La historia, con un cierto aire autobiográfico, transcurre en Montana, estado natal de Ivan Doig, y el protagonista, como el autor, también procede de familia escocesa. Igualmente, el padre de Jick es guarda forestal, como Doig lo fue en su juventud.

La historia está ambientada en English Creek, en el bosque Two Medicine y el pueblo de Gros Ventre, todos ellos lugares ficticios, aunque con una geografía claramente identificable con Montana y las Montañas Rocosas. Estamos en 1939, poco antes de comenzar la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y Jick empieza contando cómo transcurría la vida con su padre, encargado del Servicio Forestal, con su madre, antigua maestra, y con su hermano Alec, un poco mayor que él. Pero el verano no comienza muy bien, ya que surge el enfrentamiento entre Alec y sus padres, y es que Alec pretende casarse inmediatamente con su novia Leona y convertirse en cowboy, renunciando a la universidad.

Por otro lado, el verano está repleto de tareas. Jick empezará relatando el viaje que realizó con su padre para el conteo de ovejas en las diferentes granjas de la zona, lo que sirve para darnos a conocer a los personajes más curiosos y escenas de naturaleza majestuosas. Posteriormente, también nos contará otros sucesos, como aquel Cuatro de Julio y los diferentes festejos que transcurrieron a su alrededor. De este modo, conoceremos a los personajes más variopintos, pero sobre todo a Jick, un joven ávido por aprender historias y su pasado.

‘Verano en English Creek’ es una novela de transcurrir despacioso, reflexivo, para degustar con paciencia y sin prisas. Ivan Doig narra con calma, y con un tono elegíaco y amable, la vida y las relaciones humanas de un tiempo ya pasado. Con su estilo natural y cercano, Ivan Doig vuelve a contarnos una gran historia.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My nephew (and his family) just moved to Montana, and I went along to watch the kids so they could focus on cleaning, unpacking, and doing all of the other work that goes with a major move. Since I always make time to read, I searched my shelves for appropriate books to pack. Being overly optimistic, I choose three titles set in Montana; this is the only one I actually found time to read, and then I only made it through half of the book.

Having read one other title by Doig, I anticipated a strong sense of place and well-developed characters. I wasn't disappointed. This book seemed to be a smoother read than Heart Earth, and I appreciated the attention to details. Here's a passage (p 106) when 14-year-old Jick takes shovel in hand and starts to dig a new hole for the outhouse.

I don't mean to spout an entire sermon on this outhouse topic, but advancing into the earth does get your mind onto the ground in more ways than one. That day when I started in on the outhouse rectangle I of course first had to cut through the sod, and once that's been shoveled out it leaves a depression about the size of a cellar door. A sort of entryway down into the planet, it looked like. Unearthing that sod was the one part of this task that made me uneasy, and it has taken me these years to realize why. ...

And then he goes on to explain why he felt uneasy, and that reflected my feelings beautifully.

The summer of 1939; that's the time period of this story, and that's the pivotal time of Jick's growing out of his childhood into an awareness of the adult world.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slice of life in 1939 Montana.
The characters were well developed, and the interaction of these people helped to understand decisions made.
Very well written.

[Sherri Silvera · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn't my favorite Ivan Doig novel. In fact, it was kind of boring in the beginning, but by the end I was full invested in Jick and his circle of friends and family. There were things left undecided, but maybe those are resolved in the other books of the trilogy.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite of Doig's Montana stories really culminates in this sequel. The loss of connection that can occur over just one generation, the break in families over time if stories are not told. From immigrant settlers first tentative foothold in the rockies told in "Dancing at the Rascal Fair" to a fully established Forest service and how the family came to be tied to this land but no longer close with the first ranger in its service at English Creek. The two need to be read in order for the full impact of the families relation ship with the land, the forest service, and other people in the front range region called Two Medicine.
When I was reading this I was touring the region by bicycle and happened to stay in at Inn Dupuyer, a B&B run by a woman who grew up in the area and knew the Doig's. It was so interesting to hear about the life then from yet another viewpoint. It was also very pleasant to find such a lovely place to rest. A gracious welcome and every need attended to by very comfortable hosts. The perfect accompaniment to reading the story set in that town.
My room was very Victorian and cool in white, a charming shift from cycling the golden brown hills of a Montana in late August. However this building is an addition to a log cabin that dates back to the era of the novel.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another quiet book about Montana--this one is set in northern MT along the Rocky Mountain front. In the summer of 1939, 14 year old Jick is dealing with his parents' disagreement with his older brother about his future and the schism it has caused in the family. Jick spends the summer trying to sort out what is happening around him, while he takes on one physical task after another in rural Montana: counting sheep with his father, digging a new hole for the outhouse, haying, serving as a flunky for the cook in the fire camp. His father is a ranger, trying to make sure his region doesn't burn during the hot months of summer, and his mother is a practical and capable woman, terse but opinionated. Nothing too splashy happens--it's even more quiet than The Whistling Season. But, the writing is wonderful and Doig is a master of evoking the setting. And it was a nice companion to Egan's The Big Burn that I read last month.

A little too much detail for me, though, about the details of haying.

[Joaquin · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, this book ranks right up there with 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' and 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X' as far as memoirs - or whatever you call a work of fiction written in memoir form - that convey the moment in time/history that they're placed in as well as the identity of, and personal transformations that occur within, the narrator. Combine that with the author's patient, contemplative pacing - perfectly suited to the setting of the book in the historical pause between the Great Depression/Dust Bowl and WWII - and the colorful language and phrasing of the narrator and other characters, reminiscent of Norman Maclean, John McPhee, and Mark Twain on their good days, and you've got a perfect story to spend a long afternoon reading out on your front porch.
Every main character comes of age in her or his own way and has a shot at redemption in English Creek during this pivotal summer of 1939.
It was hard to put this one back into the Little Free Library when I finished it.

[Mark Robbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Doig's work every character's decisions, and motives, regardless of their immediate concern, are framed by how they will live life on the land in a particular place. In this telling, the narrator is demonstrably leaving boyhood behind yet attributes to age his inability to discover the antecedent events that might explain the stations and relations of those around him. Doig provides a series of beautifully rendered experiences for this young man, assisting a camp tender, haying for his uncle, and accompanying his forest ranger father in the high graze lands on the east face of the Rocky mountains. He gains some insights although he doesn't get answers to some of his questions for 50 more years (in ground covered by the book Ride with me Mariah Montana). A beautiful book of whistful, quiet revelations in the voice of a consummate observer who solves puzzles and builds allegories out of the land, animals and people who inhabit his Montana life.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of a family, of relationships, of coming of age, of the hard scrabble ranching life during the 1920's and 30's, and the story of a region and its geological and geographical foibles.

Doig has a marvelous way with descriptions. Describing the protagonist's best friend: "He was a haunting kid to look at. His eyes were within long deepset arcs, as if always squinched the way you do to thread a needle. And curved over with eybrows which wouldn't need to have been much thicker to make a couple of respectable blond mustaches. And then a flattish nose which, wide as it was, barely accomodated all the freckles assigned to it...."

Descriptions of this caliber and better pepper the novel and paint an exquisite portrait of a particular region of Montana. The book is simply a delight to read.

[Robin Malcomson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It takes place during the summer of 1934 in Montana. Doig does an amazing job painting a picture of the land, the times, and the people of this rural Montana sheep and cow farmland. The real story though is the story of Jick, 14 years old almost 15. He is really at a crossroads in his life....on the verge of becoming a young man. Jick is the type of person that analyzes everything and everyone. This summer is full of new experiences and the realization that as he grows up, he see everything from a different perspective. Doig is a bit wordy as he describes the land....a little TOO much detail. I would have preferred a bit more about the people....but otherwise a very well written interesting book.

[David Kessler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second read with lapse of at least a decade between the two readings. The book was even better the second time. Jick and his family jump out of the pages. To follow three generations of McKaskills living just east of Two Medicine canyon just not far from the Rocky Mountain Divide.
You are brought into the story with fires burning on Forest Service land, tending to cattle and sheep and haying in the late summer under thunder clouds. What might be going on with these two teenage young men and what might the parents be up to while they eked out a living in the 30s and up to WWII in Montana

[Margie · Rating 4 out of 5]

First in Ivan Doig's trilogy of the McCaskill family. I enjoyed reading a novel set in Montana and want to read #2 and 3 in the series. The author makes the northern Montana country near Alberta, Canada in the late 1930s come alive as he plunks you down one summer in the midst of sheep ranches near the Rockies, small town Fourth of July picnics, forest fires, and Forest Ranger McCaskill's family drama (told through the eyes of 14 year old Jick McCaskill.) Ivan Doig recently passed away, April 9, 2015 at age 75. http://eedition2.latimes.com/Olive/OD...

[Marcia Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of all the Ivan Doig books I've read, I found this one to be the least compelling. It contains Doig's trademark wonderfully descriptive writing, but the characters this time around are less well fleshed out and thus harder to connect with. I read about half way and realized I wasn't swept away as I had been with every other one of his works. DNF.

[Karlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is one of the best coming of age novels I ever read. I'm glad my book club selected it so I would reread it. Growing up in Montana in the early 20th C is depicted beautifully as the 14 year old narrator begins to ask questions.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much better read the second time around.