The Power of the Dog

Poor me. I thought this book, found on some forgotten list of best books and jotted down in my little notebook, was perhaps a nice dog story. And so, I was almost driven away by the first paragraph, which is a brutal and graphic description of what happens when a calf is castrated. 

I can just hear my sister saying Oops, not a happy novel for Princess Bluebird! Even when I was halfway through this book I considered setting it aside and giving up. However, I'm glad I stayed with it, because it is the kind of novel that will stay with me--tough, gritty, and with many, many layers to continue to think about long after the book is finished. A complex novel (oh, no, I'm talking book reviewer talk, and you know I don't like to do that) wherein one diabolical and secret plot is played off against another far more diabolical and secret plot. 

Fascinating characters--weak, strong, good, evil, sometimes sadistic and often more than a little strange--populate this chilling, taut, and very tense novel of the west. I can say no more. 

The Power of the Dog, by Thomas Savage. First published  in 1967; reprinted in 2003 with an afterword by Annie Proulx. 

The Whistling Season

Thank you, Linda, of the 7MSN Ranch, for suggesting The Whistling Season to me in a comment on a recent post about another book that I had read. I love to discover a new author, and can't wait to start reading more of Doig's books. 

The Whistling Season introduces us to Oliver Milliron, a recent widower with three sons. The Milliron family is living on a dryland farming homestead in Montana in 1909. In the first chapter, Oliver discovers an ad in the local newspaper that reads as follows: 

Can't Cook But Doesn't Bite: Housekeeping position sought by widow. Sound morals, exceptional disposition. No culinary skills, but A-1 in all other household tasks. Salary negotiable, but must include railroad fare to Montana locality; first year of peerless care for your home thereby guaranteed. Respond to Boxholder, Box 19, Lowry Hill Postal Station, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

That's all I'm going to tell you about the book, but I should think that it is enough to have you hooked. It certainly grabbed me from the first page. 

Ivan Doig, author of The Whistling Season, has a website that includes the following sections: 

* Reader's guides to some of his books; 

* An audio book section that includes links to Doig's recorded books, read by himself and by others, as well as a link to Doig's recording of Norman Mailer's A River Runs Through It;

* Ivan's Notes, which contain information about the man and his writing.

Here is a quote from the reader's guide to This House of Sky: 

Ivan Doig grew up along the rugged rims of the Rocky Mountains in Montana with his father, Charlie, and his grandmother, Bessie Ringer. His life was formed among the sheepherders and characters of small-town saloons and valley ranches as he wandered beside his restless father. ... What Doig deciphers from his past is not only a sense of the land and how it shapes us, but also of our inextricable connection to those who shape our values in the search for intimacy, independence, love and family.