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This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind
by
Ivan Doig
A haunting, magnificently written memoir by Ivan Doig about growing up in the American West Ivan Doig grew up in the rugged wilderness of western Montana among the sheepherders and denizens of small-town saloons and valley ranches. What he deciphers from his past with piercing clarity is not only a raw sense of land and how it shapes us but also of the ties to our mothers...more
Paperback, 336 pages
Published
February 19th 1980
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(first published November 30th 1977)
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I couldn't agree more with the review given:
This haunting, magnificently written memoir introduced an important American writer. Now, in its Fifteenth Anniversary Edition, Ivan Doig's preface provides stirring details of the making of this memorable book. Ivan Doig grew up in the rugged, elemental Montana wilderness 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 wan...more
This haunting, magnificently written memoir introduced an important American writer. Now, in its Fifteenth Anniversary Edition, Ivan Doig's preface provides stirring details of the making of this memorable book. Ivan Doig grew up in the rugged, elemental Montana wilderness 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 wan...more
Like "Angle of Repose", this western epic has pitched a barbed-wire fence at its entrance, daring the reader to get at the bounty within. "Angle"'s fence was the self-pitying diatribes that one had to grimace through to get to the rich descriptions of mining life in the last half of the 19th century. "Sky"'s barrier is the language of the author. Doig starts his book with difficult-to-digest semantics, possibly an attempt to meld the Scottish and Nordic language pat...more
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A biography, Doig grew up in the rugged Montana wilderness with his father, Charlie, and his grandmother, Bessie Ringer. What Doig deciphers with beautiful clarity is not only a raw sense of the land and how it shapes us, but our ties to those who nurture and love us.
Ivan’s mother died when he was young, and his father made a bad–but mercifully brief–remarriage. For a time after that, Ivan moved in with his mother’s mother Bessie while his father was recuperating from an illness. Eventuall...more
Ivan’s mother died when he was young, and his father made a bad–but mercifully brief–remarriage. For a time after that, Ivan moved in with his mother’s mother Bessie while his father was recuperating from an illness. Eventuall...more
Diane C:
This House of Sky is a memoir written by Ivan Doig. It is a book to be savored, read slowly and then reread to fully absorb his beautiful language. It reads very much like a novel and covers Doig's life in Montana after his mother's death when Doig was only six years old. It's a hard-scrabble life but rich with imagination, grueling work and love. This is also a story of family, particularly fathers and sons. The surrounding characters on the ranch and in the neighboring town are l...more
This House of Sky is a memoir written by Ivan Doig. It is a book to be savored, read slowly and then reread to fully absorb his beautiful language. It reads very much like a novel and covers Doig's life in Montana after his mother's death when Doig was only six years old. It's a hard-scrabble life but rich with imagination, grueling work and love. This is also a story of family, particularly fathers and sons. The surrounding characters on the ranch and in the neighboring town are l...more
An absolutely beautiful and prosaic account of rural Montana, family, carving an identity for oneself, and the process of acceptance. This is the first Doig I have read- after hearing praise for years from my father and others. If ever there was a memoir to read, this is it. As a semi-native Idahoan familiar with rural lifestyles and landscapes, I was moved to tears and beyond with his painful and glorious story.
I did not want it to end! I absolutely love Ivan Doig's language and to have it grace his memoir was wonderful. I was in Montana in the early 1900's - I could feel the characters and touch the landscape. His description of his father's death is incredibly moving. I saw the genesis of his fiction that I so enjoy. I think I enjoyed this as much as The Whistling Season - and that's saying a lot!
Ivan Doig's memoir of his young life in Montana is one of the best books I have read. I am traveling to Montana soon and thought I would read this before I go. Doig is one of my favorite authors and I wanted to visit some of the sites and see scenery found in his books. His characters are always complex, interesting and "salt of the earth". In Sky, Doig writes of his father and Grandmoher who raised him. His Dad was a ranch hand and Grandma was a crew cook. My Dad, Mom and Granpare...more
If you have ever sat and listened to tales of settling in or growing up in the rural West -- homesteading, experiencing childhood on the farm, enduring back-breaking and often monotonous work in the fields, living with hard times -- then you'll find it easy to get absorbed by this book. Mainly a memoir of a Montana boyhood spent on ranches and small towns, it reminded me a lot of listening to the stories of my grandparents and my parents, who lived for many decades in the same part of the world,...more
Just beautiful. I can't even remember the different reactions I had when I read this book. I just remember being captivated by the writing, and I went on to recommend this (and Doig's fiction) to book-loving friends.
If you like books that are gorgeously written, add this to your list. The author's first book-length effort, This House of Sky was a finalist for the National Book Award. In it we really feel the spaciousness of the Montana landscape, the difficulty of making a living off the land, and the prickliness of human relationships. Doig tells us a great deal about some topics, e.g. ranching, and his father's long decline from emphysema; and virtually nothing about other life experiences, e.g. any ea...more
Ivan Doig grew up in Montana. In this book, he talks about his experience growing up there. He tells about the severity of life there in general, and, more specifically, about the severity of his life growing up. Of course, having graduated from a college in the same Big Sky Athletic Conference as are the Montana universities, I was familiar with the terminology, big sky. And I was familiar with Big Sky Country. That, of course, was Montana. His title --- this house of sky --- relates, I think, ...more
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This is Doig's best work. If he has taken some liberties in romanticizing the Smith River Valley, a part of rural Montana that serves as the landscape for this book of fiction, then he does so with only the finest intentions. He has created something magical here. By drawing on the simple, elemental aspects of a rough, rural American life, he manages to approach something fundamental about ourselves, why we are here, and what it means to not be alone in our search for understanding. As if th...more
One of the best books I have ever read. His prose is incredible! I would recommend this to anyone interested in pioneers or Montana.
Friends know that fiction is a favorite companion. My book group chose an inordinate number of nonfiction selections this year, so despite my deep appreciation of Doig's novels, I worried about reading this biography of his youth in Montana. My fear was groundless. His way with words, especially his creative use of verbs, and his talent at capturing the landscape make this book as rich as his novels. Many incidents from his life have ended up in his novels, so it was like encountering old friend...more
This is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. Doig's handling of the language is pristine and nearly without peer in my experience. This memoir, (I group it as I see fit, although it could arguably be an autobiography of the author up to the date of publication)which focuses as much on Ivan's father Charlie as on Ivan himself, is a classic American story, detailing how a young boy and his widowed father grew up together, and the family they formed with Ivan's maternal grandmo...more
Judy
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
western history lovers
Recommended to Judy by:
Anne Reach
This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind paints the history of the Doig and Ringer families amidst the taming of the wild Montana hills. This isn't only a story of battling the elements but cobbling together a family for young Ivan after the death of his mother. This meant Grandmother Ringer and his father, Charlie, drawing a truce after years of harsh words and stony walls of resentment towards one another.
What I liked:
*Doig is a gifted, polished writer not content with u...more
What I liked:
*Doig is a gifted, polished writer not content with u...more
Mr. Doig's poignant tribute to his father and maternal grandmother, who raised him. In writing the book, Mr. Doig did interviews with those who knew those persons in the early years, and he uses quotes and oral history throughout to good effect. Part of the book's appeal is its setting among the farms in rural Montana. Life wasn't easy for the Doig family, but Mr. Doig was fortunate -- and realizes it -- to have two unique persons who saw him through to adulthood, despite the unfortunate...more
This is a magnificent memoir. Ivan Doig, a novelist living in Seattle, grew up an only child among sheepherders in the vast, rugged valley landscape of western Montana. The book opens with the death of his mother on Ivan's sixth birthday. His father provides for him in the determined manner of a Western ranch foreman, eventually seeking out and forming an alliance with Ivan's maternal grandmother. The family of three endures to the end, through better and worse times, though Ivan chooses to leav...more
Elegant and yawning narrative of growing up in the west at a time when to be literate meant knowing how to tame the challenges that animals, land and weather brought. He imparts a simple communion among his extended family that is articulated in few words but an unflinching understanding of their mutual love. Doig writes about his somewhat fractured childhood, how his father tried raising him alone after his wife's death. Doig deeply respects his father's Montana roots. The ties to that way of l...more
One of the best reads I've had in a long time. Touching, brilliantly and vividly descriptive. Ivan Doig's words are textures, fabrics. You are transported through time and place to his memories, his fantastically detailed memories, reaching back to six years old, his mother's tragic early death. Doig and his father and grandmother are a somewhat unlikely trio, but their lives are filled to the brim with Montana, ranching, growing up, and endless copious amounts of love and tolerance.
...more
...more
's 
. As a father, I strive now, harder and more conscious, to pass along that which is worth passing along, to be a father work remembering--simple or not. To love love love.
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Book group, Polly's choice.
Ivan Doig, now that man can write! My brother and his family live in Montana. Glacier Park is one of my all time favorite scenic places. I thought this would be a book to savor because of my connection to the area. It was much more than that! Doig's craft with the english language allowed for great character development without even describing the characters. The story line was a simple one. Nothing more than the tale of a family making the best of life ...more
Ivan Doig, now that man can write! My brother and his family live in Montana. Glacier Park is one of my all time favorite scenic places. I thought this would be a book to savor because of my connection to the area. It was much more than that! Doig's craft with the english language allowed for great character development without even describing the characters. The story line was a simple one. Nothing more than the tale of a family making the best of life ...more
Enjoyable read,
Doig tells a story of days gone by and the challenges faced by the settlers of the untamed West. I did enjoy many of the characters and his personal story of growing up in a remote farming and ranching environment, as I too am a country boy.
It is sad to see the way that America has changed, losing its innocence along the way. He provides many personal examples of the suffering endured by his family and others as they struggled against the elements and th...more
Doig tells a story of days gone by and the challenges faced by the settlers of the untamed West. I did enjoy many of the characters and his personal story of growing up in a remote farming and ranching environment, as I too am a country boy.
It is sad to see the way that America has changed, losing its innocence along the way. He provides many personal examples of the suffering endured by his family and others as they struggled against the elements and th...more
Most people know how much I love "Dancing at the Rascal Fair," but until recently that was the only book I'd ever read by Ivan Doig. While that book is fictional, "This House of Sky" is a memoir of Doig's childhood, and it secured him even more as one of my favorite authors. I don't even know where to start with this book. The characters (if you can call them that in a memoir) are incredibly vivid, and Doig does a great job of capturing the dialect of his European family m...more
This is one of those books you can come back to at different times in your life. A friend gave me this book when I first moved to Montana and I think I have reread it once since then. Most recently I was in White Sulphur Springs, MT and in that area around Ringling which prompted me to enjoy it again. The writing is just so beautiful, his descriptions of that part of Montana, the relationship between his father and grandmother and his own feelings about his family. This time I was struck mostly ...more
I truly enjoy reading Doig. This memoir provides an insight into his growing up years and how he came to write western fiction mostly centered in Montana. His life is an amazing story.
As important as the decline and death of his adored father was to him, however, there was far too much detail of his father's last years. It is hard to blame him for insisting on honoring the memory of his father. Still, that final part of the book did drag for readers.
As important as the decline and death of his adored father was to him, however, there was far too much detail of his father's last years. It is hard to blame him for insisting on honoring the memory of his father. Still, that final part of the book did drag for readers.
An honest, sometimes painful memoir. Doig has a fine, poetic sense of language, and his memories of family were not romanticized. I found that the author's insights helped me to look at my own life and family in a more realistic way. His landscape descriptions are as open and beautiful as the country he describes.
Compare this to Annie Proulx' Brokeback Mountain. With Doig, there is not such a deep sense of sadness and hopelessness.
Compare this to Annie Proulx' Brokeback Mountain. With Doig, there is not such a deep sense of sadness and hopelessness.
This is an absolutely beautifully written memoir. Ivan Doig was raised in Montana by his single father and his grandmother (the mother of his deceased mother) during the waning days of small time ranching and sheepherding in Montana. His father represents the last of that era. Doig's description of his father's and grandmother's hardscrabble life, set against the harsh, yet sometimes sublime, landscape is both fascinating and moving.
I am a big fan of Doig's and this is the first book of his that I read. A childhood memoir. He is an artist, and this is a slow and leisurely exploration. It would be interesting to reread and see if it is still my favorite. I love the way Doig uses the English language. He paints, he caresses. Eugene Peterson, who is writing theology, has a very similar style, to my ear. I am beginning to think it is a Montana thing!
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Ivan Doig was born in White Sulphur Springs, Montana to a family of homesteaders and ranch hands. After the death of his mother Berneta, on his sixth birthday, he was raised by his father Charles "Charlie" Doig and his grandmother Elizabeth "Bessie" Ringer. After several stints on ranches, they moved to Dupuyer, Pondera County, Montana in the north to herd sheep close to the Ro...more
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