Work Song
Ivan Doig, 2010
Penguin Group USA
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594485206
Summary
An award-winning and beloved novelist of the American West spins the further adventures of a favorite character, in one of his richest historical settings yet.
"If America was a melting pot, Butte would be its boiling point," observes Morrie Morgan, the itinerant teacher, walking encyclopedia, and inveterate charmer last seen leaving a one- room schoolhouse in Marias Coulee, the stage he stole in Ivan Doig's 2006 The Whistling Season. A decade later, Morrie is back in Montana, as the beguiling narrator of Work Song.
Lured like so many others by "the richest hill on earth," Morrie steps off the train in Butte, copper-mining capital of the world, in its jittery heyday of 1919. But while riches elude Morrie, once again a colorful cast of local characters-and their dramas-seek him out: a look-alike, sound-alike pair of retired Welsh miners; a streak-of-lightning waif so skinny that he is dubbed Russian Famine; a pair of mining company goons; a comely landlady propitiously named Grace; and an eccentric boss at the public library, his whispered nickname a source of inexplicable terror.
When Morrie crosses paths with a lively former student, now engaged to a fiery young union leader, he is caught up in the mounting clash between the iron-fisted mining company, radical "outside agitators," and the beleaguered miners. And as tensions above ground and below reach the explosion point, Morrie finds a unique way to give a voice to those who truly need one. (From the publisher.)
Work Song is the second novel in a trilogy—beginning with The Whistling Season (2006) and ending with Sweet Thunder (2013).
Author Bio
• Birth—June 27, 1939
• Where—White Sulphur Springs, Montana, USA
• Death—April 9, 2015
• Where—Seattle, Washington
• Education—B.A., M.A., Northwestern University; Ph.D., University of Washington
Ivan Doig was born in Montana to a family of home-steaders 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 Rocky Mountain front.
After his graduation from Valier high school, Doig attended Northwestern University, where he received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in journalism. He later earned a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Washington, writing his dissertation about John J. McGilvra (1827-1903). He now lives with his wife Carol Doig, nee Muller, a university professor of English, in Seattle, Washington.
Before he became a novelist, Doig wrote for newspapers and magazines as a free-lancer and worked for the United States Forest Service. He has also published two memoirs—This House of Sky (1979) and Heart Earth (1993).
Much of his fiction (more than 10 novels) is set in the Montana country of his youth. His major theme is family life in the past, mixing personal memory and regional history. As the western landscape and people play an important role in his fiction, he has been hailed as the new dean of western literature, a worthy successor to Wallace Stegner. (From Wikipedia.)
Extras
His own words:
• Taking apart a career in such summary sentences always seems to me like dissecting a frog—some of the life inevitably goes out of it—and so I think the more pertinent Ivan Doig for you, Reader, is the red-headed only child, son of ranch hand Charlie Doig and ranch cook Berneta Ringer Doig (who died of her lifelong asthma on my sixth birthday), who in his junior year of high school (Valier, Montana; my class of 1957 had 21 members) made up his mind to be a writer of some kind.
• No one is likely to confuse my writing style with that of Charlotte Bronte, but when that impassioned parson’s daughter lifted her pen from Jane Eyre and bequeathed us the most intriguing of plot summaries—"Reader, I married him"—she also was subliminally saying what any novelist ... must croon to those of you with your eyes on our pages: "Reader, my story is flirting with you; please love it back."
• One last word about the setting of my work, the American West. I don’t think of myself as a "Western" writer. To me, language—the substance on the page, that poetry under the prose—is the ultimate "region," the true home, for a writer. Specific geographies, but galaxies of imaginative expression —we’ve seen them both exist in William Faulkner’s postage stamp-size Yoknapatawpha County, and in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s nowhere village of Macondo, dreaming in its hundred years of solitude. If I have any creed that I wish you as readers, necessary accomplices in this flirtatious ceremony of writing and reading, will take with you from my pages, it’d be this belief of mine that writers of caliber can ground their work in specific land and lingo and yet be writing of that larger country: life. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Not one stitch unravels in this intricately threaded narrative… infectious.
New York Times Book Review
Readers who fell in love with Morrie Morgan in The Whistling Season will welcome him back to Montana in Ivan Doig’s latest adventure… Richly imagined and beautifully paced.
Associated Press
If you were looking for a novel that best expresses the American spirit, you’d have to ride past a lot of fence posts before finding anything as worthy as Work Song.
Chicago Tribune
As enjoyable and subtly thought-provoking a piece of fiction as you’re likely to pick up this summer. A pleasure to read.
Los Angeles Times
A classic tale from they heyday of American capitalism by the king of the Western novel.
Daily Beast
Doig affectionately revisits Morris "Morrie" Morgan from the much-heralded The Whistling Season. Now, 10 years later, in 1919, Morrie lands in Butte, Mont.... Scoring a job is a top priority, as is getting more face time with Grace Faraday, the alluring widow who runs the boardinghouse where he stays. Things, naturally, are complicated.... Charismatic dialogue and charming, homespun characterization make Doig's latest another surefire winner.
Publishers Weekly
Morrie Morgan gets off the train in Butte, MT, "the richest hill on earth," run by Anaconda Copper.... Before long, Morrie discovers he's being shadowed by Anaconda's thugs for being a strike agitator.... Verdict: Doig delivers solid storytelling with a keen respect for the past and gives voice to his characters in a humorous and affectionate light. Recommend this to everyone you know; essential. —Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO
Library Journal
Every once in a while, critics are so divided on their opinion of a novel as to leave readers scratching their heads in bewilderment. Witness Work Song. Sure, its plot is a little thin, and it's "history lite." Yet most critics praise Doig, a veteran writer of the West, for his ability to weave a story out of the familiar Montana countryside.
Bookmarks Magazine
As usual, Doig incorporates plenty of large-canvas history into his mix of romance and human drama...and, also as usual, he tiptoes ever so carefully on the literary ledge that separates warm, character-driven drama from sentimental melodrama. He nearly loses his footing a time or two here, unlike in the perfectly balanced Whistling Season, but on the whole, this is an engaging, leisurely paced look at labor, libraries, and love in a roughneck mining town. —Bill Ott
Booklist
Returning to Montana in 1919, ten years after he pinch-hit as a rural schoolteacher in The Whistling Season (2006), Morris Morgan finds the city of Butte roiled by labor unrest. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company has just imposed a 22 percent pay cut that has union leader Jared Evans reluctantly planning a strike.... Morrie is sympathetic...but he's more interested in finding a job and getting better acquainted with Grace Faraday, the feisty widowed proprietress of his boardinghouse.... More atmospheric, pleasingly old-fashioned storytelling from Doig, whose ear for the way people spoke and thought in times gone by is as faultless as ever.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Work Song brings back Morrie Morgan, the beloved teacher from The Whistling Season, and this time he's the narrator. What is gained and what is lost by having him tell the story?
2. Think of the opening scenes in terms of movie shots. How does Ivan bring readers into the Butte of 1919?
3. How do the two Welsh boarders function in the plot? What would be lost if they weren't there?
4. Why do you think Ivan made the library central to the novel?
5. The librarian is loosely based on an actual historical character. Do you find him believable? Do you think he's supposed to be?
6. How does the character of Russian Famine illuminate life in Butte?
7. Rabrab provides a central glue for the plot. Discuss examples that illustrate her importance.
8. Which characters did you most relate to? Can you explain why?
9. Ivan immerses readers in time and place. Does he succeed in making you see and feel Butte?
10. Why show that Morrie can cook with more flair than Grace? (Ivan has a reason for everything he includes.)
11. Are you satisfied with the ending?
(Questions from the author's website.)