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bhnmt61's review against another edition
3.0
I read three reviews of this book in a row that said nothing happens for the first two thirds, and then by the time something does happen, it's too late to hold your interest. My experience was the opposite. The first half of this book is just so lovably Montanan. We've lived here for almost thirty years now, and the old Montana guy telling stories of his youth is such a part of the landscape that it feels as natural as the mountains on the horizon.
Montana is hardly the most extreme place on the planet, but it's extreme enough that you can talk about normal events and they sound a bit like tall tales. We were out on a walk and there was a yearling bear cub up a tree over by the Petersons' place. I was just heading out to the garden when golf-ball sized hail sent me diving back to the house. We were trying to figure out what to do with our kids' old trampoline when a big wind knocked down a 30-foot ponderosa and split the damn thing down the middle. (Those are all things that have happened to me.)
Doig gets this tone and voice exactly right for the first bit. But about the time Rusty, the narrator, and his Pop pack up and head for the Fort Peck dam reunion, it somehow derails. The voice starts to feel wrong, and I'm not sure how to explain it. No adult is going to be surprised or upset about hijinks that happened at an enormous construction site thirty years ago. But we get stuck in 12-year-old Rusty's finicky morality with none of the old-guy-reminiscing tone.
From Rusty's perspective, of course he needs a four-page explanation from his dad about what happened (not just once, but half a dozen times). But as an adult reading a book that is supposedly narrated by an adult reminiscing, it gets ridiculous how many times we have to read through Pop trying to justify himself to Rusty. That sense of an older man looking back with amusement on the events of long ago gets lost. And in losing that voice, I lost interest. I agreed with those other reviewers about one thing-- by the time the final surprise is revealed, I barely shrugged. Good enough to finish, but if you're new to Doig, read any of his earlier books instead.
Montana is hardly the most extreme place on the planet, but it's extreme enough that you can talk about normal events and they sound a bit like tall tales. We were out on a walk and there was a yearling bear cub up a tree over by the Petersons' place. I was just heading out to the garden when golf-ball sized hail sent me diving back to the house. We were trying to figure out what to do with our kids' old trampoline when a big wind knocked down a 30-foot ponderosa and split the damn thing down the middle. (Those are all things that have happened to me.)
Doig gets this tone and voice exactly right for the first bit. But about the time Rusty, the narrator, and his Pop pack up and head for the Fort Peck dam reunion, it somehow derails. The voice starts to feel wrong, and I'm not sure how to explain it. No adult is going to be surprised or upset about hijinks that happened at an enormous construction site thirty years ago. But we get stuck in 12-year-old Rusty's finicky morality with none of the old-guy-reminiscing tone.
From Rusty's perspective, of course he needs a four-page explanation from his dad about what happened (not just once, but half a dozen times). But as an adult reading a book that is supposedly narrated by an adult reminiscing, it gets ridiculous how many times we have to read through Pop trying to justify himself to Rusty. That sense of an older man looking back with amusement on the events of long ago gets lost. And in losing that voice, I lost interest. I agreed with those other reviewers about one thing-- by the time the final surprise is revealed, I barely shrugged. Good enough to finish, but if you're new to Doig, read any of his earlier books instead.
rjs15's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
book_concierge's review against another edition
4.0
From the book jacket: Tom Harry has a venerable bar called the Medicine Lodge, the chief watering hole and last refuge of the town of Gros Ventre, in northern Montana. Tom also has a son named Rusty, whose mother deserted them both years ago. The pair make an odd kind of family, with the bar their true home, but they manage just fine. Until the summer of 1960, that is, when Rusty turns twelve. Change arrives with gale force, in the person of Proxy, a taxi dancer Tom knew back when, and her beatnik daughter, Francine.
My reactions:
Ivan Doig has a way of exploring the everyday events of a person’s life and making them seem epic in scope. In this marvelous novel he gives us a precocious, if worried, twelve-year-old narrator who hero worships his father. Rusty is a great observer and while his imagination can get ahead of the facts, he can also be pretty astute when judging character. I loved reading about these two and the family unit they create, as well as the many townsfolk who populate Gros Ventre, the surrounding area and especially the Medicine Lodge. As Rusty relates the happenings of the summer of 1960, I came to love his father just about as much as Rusty did. Despite having a young narrator who clearly worships his father, Doig manages to give us a balanced view of Tom Harry – father, bartender, confessor, business owner, a man with flaws and who is trying mightily to make the best of the deck he’s been dealt.
The location is practically a character unto itself, and Doig does a marvelous job of painting the picture for us:
The highly polished surface of the classic bar, as dark as wood can get. In back of the bar the colossal oak breakfront, as ornate as it was high and long, displaying all known brands of liquor. A lofty pressed-tin ceiling the color of risen cream. Walls of restful deep green. Original plank-wide floorboards as substantial as a ship’s decking.
I had never been in a museum, but the colossal back room of the Medicine Lodge immediately fixed that. The two-story space was like some enormous attic that had settled to the ground floor under the weight of its treasures.
The outside hadn’t tasted paint for a good many years, while the interior was well kept but as old-fashioned as the time it was built, with a dreary parlor and a milkmaid room off the kitchen and those high ceilings of the Victorian era that defied rationale and heating system alike.
The Rocky Mountains practically came down from the roof of the continent to meet us. The highest parts lived up to their name in solid rock, bluish-gray cliffs like the mightiest castle walls imaginable, with timber thick and dark beneath the morning sky boundless beyond.
And the way he describes the people!
My father was a figure to behold, by any standard. The long, big-shouldered body, as if the whole world was meant to look up to him the way I did. The skunk streak in his black hair; expressive, thick eyebrows … But it was the lines in his face that told the most about him. … The man was etched with the Thirties, with that deeply creased survivor’s look so many times photographed as the image of the Depression generation.
Zoe possessed deep brown eyes that were hard to look away from, and she had an olive-skinned complexion that no doubt suntanned nice as toast. … She was so skinny – call it thin, to be polite – that she reminded me of those famished waifs in news photos of DP refugee camps.
The traveling secretary was a chubby young man with the hearty attitude that so often substitutes for genuine ability; if I didn’t miss my guess, he was the son or nephew of someone in the team’s management.
The woman was, according to the saying I had never fully appreciated until then, an eyeful. In lavender slacks that had no slack between the fabric and her and a creamy blouse also snugly filled, the vision of womanhood providing us that slinky smile was not what is standardly thought of as beautiful, yet here were three males of various ages who could not stop staring at her.
This is frequently listed as #10 in the Two Medicine Country series. But calling this a series is somewhat of a misnomer. Yes, the books all take place in Two Medicine Country and there are some characters who appear in more than one book, but these are mostly stand-alone novels. THIS book definitely stands alone.
My reactions:
Ivan Doig has a way of exploring the everyday events of a person’s life and making them seem epic in scope. In this marvelous novel he gives us a precocious, if worried, twelve-year-old narrator who hero worships his father. Rusty is a great observer and while his imagination can get ahead of the facts, he can also be pretty astute when judging character. I loved reading about these two and the family unit they create, as well as the many townsfolk who populate Gros Ventre, the surrounding area and especially the Medicine Lodge. As Rusty relates the happenings of the summer of 1960, I came to love his father just about as much as Rusty did. Despite having a young narrator who clearly worships his father, Doig manages to give us a balanced view of Tom Harry – father, bartender, confessor, business owner, a man with flaws and who is trying mightily to make the best of the deck he’s been dealt.
The location is practically a character unto itself, and Doig does a marvelous job of painting the picture for us:
The highly polished surface of the classic bar, as dark as wood can get. In back of the bar the colossal oak breakfront, as ornate as it was high and long, displaying all known brands of liquor. A lofty pressed-tin ceiling the color of risen cream. Walls of restful deep green. Original plank-wide floorboards as substantial as a ship’s decking.
I had never been in a museum, but the colossal back room of the Medicine Lodge immediately fixed that. The two-story space was like some enormous attic that had settled to the ground floor under the weight of its treasures.
The outside hadn’t tasted paint for a good many years, while the interior was well kept but as old-fashioned as the time it was built, with a dreary parlor and a milkmaid room off the kitchen and those high ceilings of the Victorian era that defied rationale and heating system alike.
The Rocky Mountains practically came down from the roof of the continent to meet us. The highest parts lived up to their name in solid rock, bluish-gray cliffs like the mightiest castle walls imaginable, with timber thick and dark beneath the morning sky boundless beyond.
And the way he describes the people!
My father was a figure to behold, by any standard. The long, big-shouldered body, as if the whole world was meant to look up to him the way I did. The skunk streak in his black hair; expressive, thick eyebrows … But it was the lines in his face that told the most about him. … The man was etched with the Thirties, with that deeply creased survivor’s look so many times photographed as the image of the Depression generation.
Zoe possessed deep brown eyes that were hard to look away from, and she had an olive-skinned complexion that no doubt suntanned nice as toast. … She was so skinny – call it thin, to be polite – that she reminded me of those famished waifs in news photos of DP refugee camps.
The traveling secretary was a chubby young man with the hearty attitude that so often substitutes for genuine ability; if I didn’t miss my guess, he was the son or nephew of someone in the team’s management.
The woman was, according to the saying I had never fully appreciated until then, an eyeful. In lavender slacks that had no slack between the fabric and her and a creamy blouse also snugly filled, the vision of womanhood providing us that slinky smile was not what is standardly thought of as beautiful, yet here were three males of various ages who could not stop staring at her.
This is frequently listed as #10 in the Two Medicine Country series. But calling this a series is somewhat of a misnomer. Yes, the books all take place in Two Medicine Country and there are some characters who appear in more than one book, but these are mostly stand-alone novels. THIS book definitely stands alone.
rebroxannape's review against another edition
5.0
I do love a good story told from the perspective of a child. A Sixty-two-year-old looks back on an amazing year of his childhood in which many life-changing occurrences occurred and several people entered his life, some to never leave. Some to leave and come back. Some to leave and stay in touch, some to leave and never return. At the end, we learn what became of the most beloved characters and why he is telling this tale at this time. I would have loved to know more, though, before I parted ways with the characters.
This is a story that made me smile, wonder, and produced a lump in my from both anxiety and emotion. It's a mostly gentle tale of a boy being raised by his father, the owner and bartender of an iconic saloon in Montana. I loved that we are given several hints that everything was going to be all right in the end, even though bad things were sure to happen. It allowed me to enjoy the scene and the people of this endearing slice of Americana. I listened to it and enjoyed the narrator reading the voices and vernacular of days gone by. **4 1/2 stars**
https://rebekahsreadingsandwatchings.com/
This is a story that made me smile, wonder, and produced a lump in my from both anxiety and emotion. It's a mostly gentle tale of a boy being raised by his father, the owner and bartender of an iconic saloon in Montana. I loved that we are given several hints that everything was going to be all right in the end, even though bad things were sure to happen. It allowed me to enjoy the scene and the people of this endearing slice of Americana. I listened to it and enjoyed the narrator reading the voices and vernacular of days gone by. **4 1/2 stars**
https://rebekahsreadingsandwatchings.com/
erincataldi's review against another edition
4.0
Slow, yet supremely captivating; this tale of a young boy growing up in the back of his father's bar during the sixties is such a captivating portrait of Americana. Nestled deep in the mountains of the Montano medicine country is the Medicine Lodge ran by a bowtie wearing stickler named Tom Harry. His twelve year old son Rusty is about to have one of the most memorable summers of his life and at the heart of it is the bar and its many patrons. It's 1960 and the world is changing, the Top Spot Diner has new owners and they have brought with them their twelve year old daughter, Zoe. Despite their initial misgivings the two of them become fast friends and Rusty wastes no time showing her all the wonders of the back room in the bar. Together they listen to the wild tales of the bar goers and see Tom Harry in all his glory. Leisurely told without much plot, this tale is still enthralling - I loved all the characters and this town (especially the bar) seemed so real to me. Fantastic storytelling!
pattiillbee11's review against another edition
3.0
I don't know why but this novel and I just didn't click. The characters seemed one dimensional to me. It was like being stuck in a really long Hallmark movie. I guess I'm too jaded for this type of sweet story.
peaches1951's review against another edition
4.0
Ivan Doig's master storytelling creates a memorable character as seen through the eyes of his young son. Doig nails Montana scenery, the strengths and foibles of we humans, and the memorable character of the bartender. Loved this book.
ris_stitches's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book, although it was a bit long-winded and repetitive at times. Great story.
cpwang65's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5