English Creek by Ivan Doig
A few days ago, I finished reading English Creek by Ivan Doig, and I enjoyed it so much that I’m now re-reading it with my aunt, whom I read aloud to once a week since her eyesight started to deteriorate. I got such a kick out of it, I knew she would, too.
It is a novel, the story of a nearly 15-year-old boy growing up in the Montana mountains shortly before the beginning of WWII. He lives with his mom, dad, and 18-year-old brother. His father is a Forest Supervisor in Two Medicine County, meaning he is responsible for preventing and fighting fires in that portion of the forest.
What I love, besides the great story, wonderful characters, and beautiful writing, is the way the characters talk, the idioms they use. I have always delighted in clever, funny turns of phrases, often used by people in particular regions or of a particular time. Southern phrases like “Bless her heart,” and Britishisms like “Jolly good egg.” Country music often features clever ones, such as “If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?” The conversations of Doig’s characters and the author's narration are laced with unique turns of phrase that please me no end.
While listening to his father, mother, and brother talking to each other at dinner, Doig writes of the main character, Jick McCaskill, “I had the bright idea this conversation could benefit from my help.”
Another one, describing a neighbor family: “God, those Zanes did think they were the ding-dong of the world’s bell.” (p. 181)
In wonder at the way someone else’s mind works: “North of the ears strange things will happen.” (p. 232)
Asking about a conversation:
“How’d that go over with him?” my father wondered.
”About like a fart in church.”Telling the reader about keeping himself busy: “And so I fished like an apostle,…”
Doig’s descriptions, too, are extraordinary.
Describing the mountainous landscape: “…why in a landscape with hills and buttes and benchlands everywhere a person is so seldom sheltered from the everlasting damn wind. I mean, having the wind of the Two trying to blow harmonica tunes through your rib cage just naturally wears on the nerves.” (p. 20)
“No matter what time of day you approached it, the Hebner place looked as if demolition was being done and the demolishers were just now taking a smoke break…In short, not much ever functioned on the Hebner place except gravity.”
“Nothing is more likeable than a lamb bucking in fun. First will come that waggle of the tail, a spasm of wriggles faster than the eye can follow. Then a stiff-legged jump sideways, the current of joy hitting the little body so quick there isn’t time to bend its knees. Probably a bleat, byeahh, next, and then the romping run. Watching them you have to keep reminding yourself that lambs grow up, and what is pleasantly foolish in a lamb’s brain is going to linger on to be just dumbness in the mind of a full-size ewe.” (p. 86)
The story is centered around one summer that was a turning point in the life of the McCaskill family. It was at the tail-end of the Depression, and Jick’s parents, and even Jick himself, had been saving for years to send his brother Alec to college. Alec was a whiz at numbers and almost everything else. He would be the first in the family to attend college, and that was a goal they had all worked towards, skimping, saving, and sacrificing for many years. But this summer, Alec fell in love with the beautiful Leona, whose smile and presence Jick described this way:
‘Just fine,” Leona responded along with her flash of a smile. She seemed to be on the brink of saying a lot more, but then just passed that smile around to the rest of us, a full share to my father and another to my mother and then to me that made my throat tighten a little, then letting it rest last and coziest on Alec. She had a natural ability at that, presenting some pleasantry and then lighting up the room so you thought the remark amounted to a whole hell of a lot more than it did. (p. 10)
Jick had felt safe and relaxed in his loving, tight-knit family of four. Now there were silences, tension, some anger, but mostly his parents trying to coax his brother into reconsidering immediately giving up college for a married life that would be full of struggle, and persuading him to at least try college for a year first.
You often hear books described as a “coming of age” story, and this one could certainly be described that way. At nearly 15, Jick is growing physically and learning more about himself, his family, his neighbors, his parents’ relationship, the town, and its history, as well as how to live in the mountainous, tree-dominated land, and much more.
Speaking of coming of age, I watched my sons grow into men, and along the way, they found methods to keep from crying. I feel that’s a real shame and a loss for them and many men, but I understand the pressure men feel not to cry. The author talks about a particular turning point as he was learning how to handle emotion:
“Son of a goddamn sonofabitch,” I remember was all I managed to come out with to commemorate this discovery. That wasn’t too bad under the circumstance, for the situation called for either hard language or hot tears, and maybe it could be pinpointed that right there I grew out of the bawling age into the cussing one.
I googled Ivan Doig and discovered a lovely documentary about him called "Landscapes of a Western Mind: The Story of Ivan Doig." Even if you don’t think you will read one of his books, I highly recommend watching the documentary. It’s not very long and it’s gorgeous. (I looked it up and streamed it on my PBS station streaming channel. You can donate and watch it on Montana PBS.) Doig wrote novels and lived in the Pacific Northwest, but he grew up in Montana and spent many days of his life in that land. The documentary was made after his death, but it includes interviews with his wife and some of the townspeople who were part of what Doig based his characters on. English Creek is the first of a trilogy. I look forward to reading the other two. I blogged in the past about two other Ivan Doig’s books I’ve read, Last Bus to Wisdom and Bartender’s Tale.