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Title: Prairie Nocturne : A Novel by Ivan Doig ISBN: 0-7432-0135-3 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Montana woman teaches rodeo clown to sing the blues.
Comment: Alone, independent, and now in her forties, DANCING AT THE RASCAL FAIR's Susan Duff returns as one of three principal characters in Ivan Doig's seventh novel, PRAIRIE NOCTURNE. Set in 1924 Helena and in Montana's Two Medicine country wilderness, World War I hero and failed gubernatorial candidate, Wes Williamson, surprises his former paramour, Susan, with a request that she teach Monty Rathbun how to sing. The son of a buffalo soldier, Monty is a chauffer and former rodeo clown. Because he is black, Monty's rise to celebrity eventually stirs up racial prejudice in a subplot involving the local Ku Klux Klan. Though well written, blending a lovely story with plenty of Western history, landscape and lore, Doig's novel, much like a prairie, rambles on endlessly at times; Doig's PRAIRIE also tends to be dogged with digressions. But this is my only criticism of an otherwise satisfying historical novel, written by one of the finest Western writers spinning yarns today.
G. Merritt
Rating: 4
Summary: Return to Two Medicine Country
Comment: It should come as no surprise to any fan of western literature that Ivan Doig has returned to the necessary soil of Montana to tell his latest story. But that he has combined his familiar landscape and characters with a new twist might cause a pleasant wonder.
In "Prairie Nocturne," the West's pre-eminent literary novelist rides the wide-open range between Montana and New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, gathering a cast of players for one last inspired grasp at love and celebrity.
In a Faulknerian flourish that has threaded through five of his six previous novels, Doig again populates his seventh with some familiar faces in old settings. What Doig fan would be astonished to find the indomitable Angus McCaskill making more than a cameo appearance in Doig's newest novel?
And lest any reader think Doig's beloved landscape has been relegated to a cameo appearance shorter than any McCaskill's, fear not. No western writer - and Doig is the prime living model for that species - can escape the ageless countryside's effect on either character or author.
Doig's poetic prose is growing richer and more subtle with each book, like a stone in a river. In "Prairie Nocturne," as the narrative entwines the pasts and presents of its three principal characters, his essential themes re-emerge: family, landscape, childhood memory, loyalty, and the inescapability of our past.
Doig's characters, new and old, are unforgettable, and not just because he keeps bringing them back to life in subsequent books. He embroiders them with history, myth and sensuality. Combined with the timeless beauty of his own ancestral ground, they are fast becoming as much a part of the American mind-scape as the Snopes family of Yoknapatawpha.
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Title: Winter Brothers: A Season at the Edge of AMERICAN (AMERI)ca by Ivan Doig ISBN: 0156972158 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 20 October, 1982 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: DANCING AT THE RASCAL FAIR by Ivan Doig ISBN: 0684831058 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 11 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson ISBN: 0375412115 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: English Creek (Contemporary American Fiction) by Ivan Doig ISBN: 0140084428 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Mountain Time : A Novel by Ivan Doig ISBN: 0684865696 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 30 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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