English Creek by Ivan Doig

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.

Sweet Thursday

This book is truly a continuation of Cannery Row beginning twenty years after its predecessor which should be read first. Things have changed of course. Characters have died, matured, moved on but the essential institutions remain the same. The biggest impact on the neighbourhood is the store’s new owner. If you liked Cannery Row you’ll enjoy its sequel. The making of these books is Steinbeck’s cast of characters. From the storekeeper Joseph and Mary to whom a game in which it is impossible to cheat is an inconceivable idea, to Doc who is honest in all things, to the town constable who knows all and whose very presence helps keep the peace.

Sweet Thursday of the title refers to a particular Thursday in the storyline when matters come to a positive convergence. However actions planned with incomplete knowledge of the facts can and do lead to unpredictable results.

Tripwire Lee Child

A detective thriller. The bad guys a confidence man preying on the relatives of men Missing in Action and a loan shark who disappeared in a helicopter crash in Vietnam and was determine to stay disappeared. Periods of tedium interspersed with extreme violence. Supplies a great deal of  military and security detail. Reads well.

The Prince and the Pilgrim

Alexander is the orphaned nephew of the King of Cornwall who murdered his father. Alice’s Mother died in childbirth and her warrior father goes on pilgrimages for the sake of a severe war wound. Hence the prince and the pilgrim. So how do the two meet up and how does the son avenge his father. This is a side-plot to the story of Arthur and Merlin but a decent read for all that.

Cannery Row

Don’t know how I’ve missed reading this book all these years. It appears to be a series of vignettes of the characters in this coastal fishing and canning village. So far it has covered the local general store, a flop house, a brothel, and a biological station. The protection racket that has a group of homeless men ‘renting’ space from the Chinese Store owner speaks to the nature of the neighbourhood. For a lad who grew up in the farming country of the Salinas Valley the author seems to know a great deal about aquatic life. And so the book is not about fishing or fish processing but a collection of characters who live and work around a particular street corner on Cannery Row. The spiritual home of the area is of course the Palace Flophouse where the only important matter before most of the group is where the next drink is coming from. Work is only the means of attaining it and to be shunned otherwise.

Helmet for My Pillow

Just as David Kenyon Webster’s unpublished work formed the basis for his father’s Band of Brothers this memoir is the backbone of Hugh Ambrose’s The Pacific. Both became the mini-series produced by Spielberg and Hanks. Both writers were newspapermen in civilian life. Without any prologue the book begins with a description of the dehumanizing process of basic training which seems common to all such memoirs. Leckie’s style is so engaging it almost makes basic sound like fun, it contains little of the rancour that often populates such tomes. His background as a reporter shows in a spare fact-based approach devoid of excessive editorial comment that still manages to get his point across. He writes about doing time in the brig as if it were a point of honour. His descriptions of jungle surveillance are terrifying in their simplicity. All in all a great read.

The Son

Meyer’s style is off-hand, sarcastic, even dismissive. The scene is set in Texas where early settlers risked Indian Raids and Mexican Armies because the land was free and the soil rich. That the aborigines resisted the immigrant incursion into their lands should be no mystery, the way in which White Settlers treated their Mexican Neighbours sadly reflects the fact that little has changed over the centuries. As always there seems to be one law for the rich and powerful, but little justice for ordinary men. In a land where it takes many acres to support a single critter ranches are the size of small European Countries and cattle graze range that took centuries to grow. Oil is king and cattle are a losing proposition. The cowboy is a dying breed as horses on the range are replaced by gasoline engines on city streets. The open range is patrolled by aircraft. Horses become showpieces and entertainment rather than working animals. When Middle East Wells start producing up to 100,000 barrels of oil/day to 500 from a Texas well even oil falls into eclipse.

The passing of the Indian led inevitably to the passing of the cowboy way and the open range as the land became safe for a veritable flood of settlers who populated the land and civilized it forever. A land where a buckaroo slept under the stars by his fire with the howls of wolves in his ears was replaced by citified dandies who slept in subdivisions. Reading this book takes some attention to detail as it jumps from generation to generation in at least 5 time periods and family story arcs but it provides an excellent background history to modern day Texas.