Synopses & Reviews
Masterfully crafted with lyrical and haunting language, Doig's memoir remains an enduring classic, a story to be savored by anyone who has ever loved a parent or been shaped by the land around them.
This House of Sky is the moving chronicle of Ivan Doig's youth growing up in Montana. At age six, his mother died, leaving his father, rancher and cowboy, Charlie Doig, and maternal grandmother, the stalwart Bessie Ringer, to raise him. Times were hard; work was difficult; poverty always shadowed them. But drawing on their strong love and gritty determination, they find the strength to withstand these difficult circumstances. They are, Doig reflects, relics of an earlier time and a different lifestyleuncomplaining, unquestioning, accepting the western land with all its hardships and beauty.
Synopsis
Doig tells the story of his hard life growing up in Montana without a mother. Life with his rancher father and grandmother was tough, but the family's strong love and determination gave it the strength to weather the hardships on the western landscape. Abridged.
About the Author
IVAN DOIG was born in Montana in 1939 and grew up along the Rocky Mountain Front, the dramatic landscape that has inspired much of his writing. His first book, This House of Sky, was a finalist for the National Book Award in contemporary thought. "The language begins in western territory and experience but in the hands of an artist it touches all landscape and all life," Robert Kirsch wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "Doig is such an artist," Richard Critchfield added in the Washington Post, "Nor is Doig's gift merely literary. Besides his intuitions and artistry there is the iron purpose of an ex-ranchhand who has earned his Ph.D. in history."