Ivan Doig writes in a homespun style that solidly places this work in time and space. Jick McCaskill lives in Montana of the Great Depression that there began in 1919 when the end of the war dropped the bottom out of farm and cattle markets. His father’s Forest Services job remains un-Hoovered but its wages cut. Jick marks the progress of time by the cinches he lets out a notch at a time on the stirrups as he grows tall in the saddle at 14. Or his his brother Alec affecting a neck hanky to mark himself as a cowboy--is your Adams apple cold his father asks. It’s turns of phrase such as these that endear one to this story telling.
Life is no fairy tale and the people we love best are often the most difficult to fathom. One of the most prickly being the relationship between fathers and sons. The story is narrated by and told from the point of view of young Jick who turned 15 in September of 1939. From my point of view the best book I’ve read this year.
Life is no fairy tale and the people we love best are often the most difficult to fathom. One of the most prickly being the relationship between fathers and sons. The story is narrated by and told from the point of view of young Jick who turned 15 in September of 1939. From my point of view the best book I’ve read this year.
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