Ivan Doig, This House of Sky

Montana Week continues here at BITS with another memoir, by novelist Ivan Doig. First published in 1979, his story is a rhapsody of affection for the land where he grew up, the small towns, homesteads and ranches in the Smith River Valley, along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

Born in 1939, Doig begins his tale with the emigration of his forebears from Scotland to Montana. At the end, in the 1970s, he has emerged as a writer with a graduate degree, living in Seattle, with rich and deeply felt memories of the people and the land he has known – the house of sky.

An only child, his mother dying when he is six years old, Doig is raised by his father, Charlie, who works various jobs, sheepherding, haying, moving from place to place. For a while he leases a small ranch of his own, his son in tow.

Charlie is a hard-working man, with a big heart and tender love for his son. Concerned by a turn of bad health, he is reconciled to his mother-in-law, who had never approved of her daughter's marriage to him. The three of them become a family that remains together until Charlie's death at age 70.

The book captures and preserves in detail a way of life that has almost vanished from America. Doig tells of growing up in wide open spaces among livestock and wildlife, learning from his father the skills of making a living off the land and surviving against the odds.

White Sulphur Springs today, photo by R Scheer © 2011

In his boyhood during the 1940s, the nearest town was White Sulphur Springs, Montana, where he would go with his widowed father, spending a few hours with him in one of the town's many saloons. There Charlie would find old friends and catch up on the local news. Doig's chapter describing the specific ambiance and clientele of each of the bars in town is a memorable record of mid-century social history.

He attends small town schools, spending the winters in rented rooms, seeing his father and grandmother only on weekends. Because much of his time is spent with adults or alone, he grows up more quickly than his peers and learns to love solitude.

At 300+ pages, this is not a long book, but it's no page-turner. You find yourself reading it slowly, relishing the rich prose style that captures the poetry in this landscape of mountains, valleys, and plains. No less engaging are the people, with their personal quirks, habits, ways of talking, and often eccentric behavior.

Actually, the book reads much like a novel, full of stories, colorful characters, humor, pathos, suspense, and adventures. The vividness of Doig's writing reflects his training as a journalist. It’s a great book for anyone with an interest in the West, nature writing, books about growing up, family sagas, ranching and rural life. 

This House of Sky is available at amazon and AbeBooks. For a sample of his excellent fiction, I'd recommend his historical novel Prairie Nocturne, about an African-American operatic singer, the son of a cook at Fort Belknap and a Buffalo Soldier.

Coming up: Ralph Beer, In These Hills