M. Mark Miller, Author

Tag: Ivan Doig

  • An Event: Getting Reacquainted With Jamie Ford

    I was delighted to renew my acquaintance with Jamie Ford last night at Friends of the MSU Libraries annual dinner. I first met Jamie a couple of years ago when his book, The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, was starting its ascension onto the New York Times best seller list where it has roosted ever since.

    I had just read Hotel and recommended it for the Montana Book Award. (Part of the fun of being a reader for MBA is getting to read brand new books.) When I heard that Jamie would be at Bozeman’s premier independent bookstore, The Country Bookshelf, I decided I had to meet him.

    I arrived at the bookstore early and found Jamie chatting with the owner. I introduced myself and told him how much I admire Hotel. Then I coyly told him I too am a writer. He politely asked about that and I found a copy of Adventures in Yellowstone on the store shelves. He politely admired my book and we chatted amiably about writing and life in Montana.

    A few months later, I met Jamie again at the presentation ceremonies for the Montana Book Award at the Bozeman Public Library. That when my wife, who is Dean of MSU Libraries, recruited him to speak at the Friends dinner.

    I was pleased last night when Jamie greeted me with a smile and recalled that we had met before. After all, his book has enjoyed a bit more success than mine has. Hotel has been translated into a couple dozen languages and is on sale in thirty countries. (I wonder what dialogue between Henry Lee, a 12-year-old Chinese boy, and Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, sounds like in Norwegian?)

    Adventures is available only in English, but you can buy it on the web anywhere in the world. (I wonder what Emma Cowan’s story of being captured by the Nez Perce in 1877 would sound like in Norwegian.)

    In his speech last night, Jamie talked about the importance of libraries in his life. He described himself as “a library rat” and said, “I write in the library.”

    He recalled attending a pre-marital counseling session where couples were asked how they met. He said several other people reported stories like: “I woke up one morning with a woman in my bed wearing my t-shirt. I thought I should introduce myself.”

    “I met my wife in the library,” Jamie said. “And a year later I proposed to her—in the library.”

    Throughout the evening, Jamie was friendly and gracious. He found ways to personalize the dedications he put on the books he signed. He answered audience questions candidly and completely. He offered advice to aspiring writers with a smile.

    As I once told my friend Craig Lancaster, the Billings-based author of the novels 600 Hours and Edward and The Summer Son, there’s only one thing I dislike about Jamie Ford. He’s so damn nice I can’t think of reason to dislike him and that makes me feel guilty about envying his success.

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  • News and Views: Tom McGuane and a Mind Adrift

    My friend, Billings author Craig Lancaster posted a comment about Tom McGuane on his website, A Mind Adrift in the West. A New York Times article about McGuane said, “There’s a view of Montana writing that seems stage-managed by the Chamber of Commerce — it’s all about writers like A. B. Guthrie and Ivan Doig,” he said, referring to two authors of historical novels about a rugged, frontier Montana. “It used to bother me that nobody had a scene where somebody was delivering a pizza.”

    Lancaster responded: I don’t want to toot my own horn (yeah, okay, just go with me on this one), but allow me to direct your attention to the bottom of Page 257 of 600 Hours of Edward:

    “I’m watching Dragnet almost three hours early and might even watch another episode, if I feel like it. I’m also munching on thin-crust pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut. I didn’t go to the grocery store today. I decided I didn’t have to. Maybe I’ll go tomorrow. Or maybe not.

    I’ll do whatever I feel like doing. You live only once.”

    I commented: “I admire Tom McGuane’s mastery of craft, but his writing always strikes me as something written by a guy who moved to Montana 30 years ago and never bothered to learn the history of the place. He apparently hasn’t read the work of fine writers like you [Craig Lancaster], Kevin Canty, and Mary Clearman Blew. He’s right when he says the New York literary establishment slights western writers—and he does too. And, I recommend “Riding on the Rim.” [correction: Make that “Driving on the Rim.”]  It’s a fine novel about how a guy who moved to Montana 30 years ago thinks of the place.

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  • News and Views: Meeting Ivan Doig Was Great!

    I got a few minutes to chat with Ivan Doig last night at the Friends of MSU Libraries dinner. I told him about my mother’s evaluation of his novel, English Creek. Mom was unimpressed with his description of life in rural Montana during the Great Depression. “He just wrote about things the way they were,” she said.

    Ivan chuckled politely and his wife, Carol, quickly added, “but he worked so hard to get it right.” So the joke didn’t get the hearty laugh I expected.

    Of course, I know how hard it is to bring the past to life accurately. I’ve tried it myself a few times. Besides, anybody who has read the acknowledgement sections in Doig’s books knows how hard he works to get the details right. If you haven’t read his acknowledgments, you should. That would give you a greater appreciation of Doig’s work.

    In his speech, Doig talked about his work in libraries “listening for voices in the quiet of the past” and looking for “crystallizing details” in places where “Google doesn’t go.”  Classic Doig: precise colorful phrases that stick in the skull and move the narrative.

    Doig focused on his “Montana Trilogy,” books that span the state’s first century by chronicling three generations of the fictional McCaskill family.  Much of the authentic detail for English Creek, the Depression era novel, came from the WPA Writer’s Project documents held and the Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections of the MSU Libraries.

    Doig praised the New Deal project, which sent unemployed writers to gather and write the history of every state, as “an almost miraculous effort.” He also told the story of how Dr. Burlingame, who was a MSU History Professor, made a “heroic rescue” of the papers of the Montana writer’s project when he found they were going to be thrown in the Silver Bow County dump.

    (I’ve worked with the WPA papers several times myself, so I know what a tragedy that would have been. If you’d like to see a sample of the work that might have been lost, get a copy of An Onery Bunch: Tales and Anecdotes Collected by the WPA Montana Writer’s Project 1935-1942.)

    Doig told other tales about such incidents as putting on his coat to search for documents in the icy basement of Saint Andrew’s University Library in Scotland for another book in the Montana Trilogy, Dancing at the Rascal Fair. The main characters of this novel migrated to Montana from Scotland at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. Doig was delighted to find letters from a Scots emigrant describing a trans-Atlantic crossing and if you’ve read Dancing, you know why.

    Doig also talked about Work Song, his new novel set in Butte in 1919. In this book, he said, a library becomes a character. Doig said a photograph of the grand library building that Butte citizens built to show the world there was culture in the rugged mining city inspired him. Doig didn’t talk about his head librarian character that obviously is based on Granville Stuart, whose diaries are one of the best descriptions of frontier Montana. I’d love to hear him talk about that.

    After the speech, I chatted with a library friend who said he was amazed at what a good speaker Doig was. While I agreed that Doig’s style and finesse as a speaker is superlative, I said I wasn’t surprised. He is a master wordsmith who works hard to reach his audiences. Of course, that shows in his speaking as well as his writing.

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  • News and Views: I’m Eager To Meet Ivan Doig

    I’m looking forward to seeing Ivan Doig tonight at the annual Friends of MSU Libraries dinner. I’ve been a fan of Doig’s since the 1980s when I read his marvelous memoir, This House of Sky. Like Ivan, I grew up in Montana ranch country, so I find much to identify with in his work.  He got the people, times, and the setting I grew up with right.

    I’m sure that Ivan gets other times and settings right.  I was so impressed with his novel, English Creek, that I gave it to my mother.  Mom came of age during the Great Depression in rural Montana, just like the protagonist of English Creek, Jick McCaskill.

    The next time I visited, I asked, “Mom, what did you think of that book I gave you?”

    “It was okay,” she said.

    “But did he get the times right?” I persisted.

    She agreed that he had, but she was still unimpressed.

    “He just wrote about things the way they were,” she said.

    If I get a chance to talk with Ivan tonight, I’ll tell him that story.  I think he’d be amused.  At least, I hope so.

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