Have you read The Great Brain series, John Dennis Fitzgerald's collection of Western Americana, set in Utah in the late 1800s? The based-loosely-on-the author's-childhood stories are told by young John Fitzgerald and recount the adventures, mishaps, misdemeanors, and rebellions of his precocious older brother, Tom. If you haven't, you are in for a whale of a treat. Although meant for adolescents, adults will appreciate the sophisticated themes Fitzgerald offers up: an Irish Catholic family at cultural odds in a Mormon-dominant community; inherent racism against Jews, Greeks, Native Americans; corporal punishment; ecclesiastical cruelty; creative financial management; and a bit of gentle sleuthing for fans of historical crime fiction.

Why I am waxing on about a series I read more than thirty years ago and what does the Great Brain have to do with Ivan Doig and his post-WWI Montana? Well, here's the thing: These great authors tell stories of the American West, of towns bursting to life by bursting forth the mineral riches that lay beneath their shale and clay crust. They tell stories of communities dependent upon the strength of its law-abiding, God-fearing families. And with only twenty years separating their settings, turn-of-the-century Utah and 1919 Montana are cousins a scant generation apart.

The Great Brain entertains with rollicking stories that have deeper, sharper, darker themes. Work Song has the potential for the same, as the community of Butte, MT faces post-war weariness, the flu epidemic, Bolshevik revolution, and copper mining disasters, but Doig never reaches past simple entertainment. It is a story with rounded edges and fluffernutter filling. After the beauty and power of The Whistling Season, set ten years prior and during which we are introduced to Morrie, Work Song is a let-down. It is a darling and endearing novel, but I venture to guess that thirty years on I'll still remember The Great Brain series and I'll struggle to recall Work Song