English Creek

This is just a beautiful book. It is not profound. It's a very nice family story - Jick, almost 15 years old, is trying to figure out why his dad and Stanley have such tricky relationship. That's enough of a puzzle to keep the story moving. But this is not a novel driven by plot, or by political or philosophical issues. It is a panorama of ranch life in Montana. Haying, shepherding, fighting fires, a 4th of July picnic and dance. The story is just a framework on which to hang a rich tapestry of place and lifestyle.

This is listed as No.1 in Doig's McCaskill trilogy, but I believe that Dancing at the Rascal Fair is first in chronological, if not publication, order. One hot summer in the Montana mountains is featured here, as the narrator recalls how he spent the last "free" season before Europe erupted in a second World War, and big changes came to his family. This is a dense rich story, of a boy learning to be a man; working with his father, a member of the US Forest Service--counting sheep herds, provisioning remote camps, worrying through fire season and playing flunky to the cook at a tense fire-fighters' camp--and with his rancher uncle during a month of cutting, raking and stacking the winter's supply of hay. Along the way, he finds he can be show more as resourceful as the environment requires, and through his own persistence, also learns some things about his family's past that the adults have been inclined to keep buried. show less

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 manmade – palpable.

Jick is a keen observer, if sometimes perplexed. I love his descriptions of various events – accompanying his father show more 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. show less

This story reads like a time capsule. We're led through customs, and places, introduced to people, a way of life, and a time just before the whole world changed into the modern world we live in today. Or so it feels. The descriptions of Montana, the mountains and valleys, the farmland and forests are beautiful, vivid, and majestic. But the descriptions of the family and the struggles that land on them over this single summer of the story, are no less dramatic and moving. The story is described as a coming of age story, and it is that. But it feels like more than just the story of how a young boy became a young man. The ending chapter moved me deeply as the narrator puts this summer of his 14th year in the context of how things changed show more afterward, where life took the characters we met along the way and what that time means to him now. show less

Two Medicine country is in northern Montana. It’s a fictional setting but by the time the reader is finished, this wonderful setting will be imprinted firmly in your mind. It’s the summer of 1939. The depression is winding down and as June begins, we are introduced to fourteen year old Jick McCaskill, the son of a tough hard-working forest ranger. We follow the boy through his many summer tasks and adventures, including sheep counting, delivering supplies to the outposts, toiling through the hay harvest and fighting a raging forest fire. All of this is told in much vivid detail: the 4th of July celebration goes on for over fifty pages but this helps immerse the reader into this special time and place. For Jick, it is also a summer show more of awakenings and revelations and he will find himself in September, a wiser and more mature young man. This is the first of a trilogy and I look forward to the others. show less

This is the first book in the McCaskill family trilogy and it is a realistic, honest, and heartwarming coming of age novel. It is set in small town Montana in 1939. Jick's is 14 and his brother is 18 and in love. The older brother is a very talented student and the family expectation is that he will be the one to go to college and make something of himself. He only wants to get married and cowboy for a living. This splits the family. Jick is the observant brother who only wants the family to all get along. The book is a peon to a good decent family and the life that they live prior to the coming of WWII. The descriptions of life in a farming and ranching community are rich with descriptions and many of the scenes are full of humor and show more love. Some readers might think this novel is merely nostalgia write large, but it was so much more. Doig's descriptions are beautiful to read. The action is slow moving, and the climax unexpected and comes with a very gentle denouement. show less

5030. English Creek, by Ivan Doig (read 4 Jun 2013) I've been wanting to read this for a long time, but not till now did I find a copy in our library. My sister in Seattle recommended Doig to me, but she has now died so I can't tell her how much I liked the book but I will tell her daughter. This book is laid in a fictional part of Montana in the year 1939, and the narrator and central character is Jick, age 14 going on 15. His father is with the U.S. Forest Service and he has a brother, Alec, who is 18 and wants to marry rather than go to college--to his parents' deep-seated disapproval. The story revolves around Jick's effort to heal his family's tensions, and one has to admire Jick and the work he can do--made me think how at his age show more I would not have been as able and efficient as he was. Growing up in Montana in a rural setting is a lot diferent han growing up in Iowa is such a setting, but yet there is some similarity and I reveled in the story, which is deep in local color. No doubt a Montanan wouold get more from the book than I did, but I found the reading deeply satisfying and even the very authentic profanity did not bother me, as it often does in more sophisticated novels. I was sad to see that apparently the next two books of the Montana trilogy of the author will not have the same characters--as I was looking forward to the next volumes . show less