English Creek

 Doig, Ivan. English Creek. New York: Antheneum 1984. Print

First Sentences:

That month of June swam into the Two Medicine country. In my life until then I had never seen the sidehills come so green, the coulees stay so spongy with runoff. A right amount of wet evidently could sweeten the universe.


Description:

Sometimes I need a book just to curl up with and sink into like a soft, downy comforter, sitting in a comfy chair near a good light in front of the fireplace. At these times, I need a book that describes real people living in interesting locations, doing ordinary activities. But the writing and the people must be so genuinely honest and clear, like a cool zephyr breeze on a muggy summer day. With these conditions, I cannot help but sit back and relish everything about such a reading experience. It is unique, calming, and highly enjoyable, no matter how all too brief the warmth and clarity of the people, setting, and writing exist with me.

Such a book is my highly recommended novel by Ivan Doig, English Creek. It tells of life in an isolated Montana community in 1939, an area surrounded by forests, a river, and sheep ranches run by neighbors whose families have been in the area for generations. Narrated by 14-year-old Jick McCaskill, he decribes what he lives through one paticular summer: moving sheep to the high fields, a Fourth of July rodeo and dance, ice cream making, youthful friends and loves, and a frightening forest fire (his father is the local ranger). Jick shares his philosophical thoughts behind moving an outhouse which required breaking virgin sod for the first time and prying up unending amounts of rock from the stony field. He felt his outhouse-moving experience justified the county's reputation as "a toupee of grass on a cranium of rock." 

 

Has there ever been a better description of a small town July 4th celebration and its affect on those who join in the festivities as Jick's summation below:

If a sense of life, of the blood racing beneath your skin, is not with you at a Fourth of July creek picnic, then it is never going to be.

While this plot description may sound rather tepid, I prefer to call it "quiet," "immersive" and "deeply satisfying." It's not a book to breeze through. It is a pleasure to languish in Two Medicine county for as long as possible to watch Jick face challenges, understand his family better, and learn of the history of that small community. And the people he lives among each has a story to tell in their manner and actions, and in their spare, well-considered words. Here are a sampling of his neighbors:

• Ed Heaney, who "served in France during the war...[but] didn't want to squander one further minute of his life talking about it."
• Earl Zane, who was "built as if he'd been put together out of railroad ties"...with a face "as clear as the label on a maple sugar jar [that] proclaimed SAP."
  
• Velma, with her tiny pearl button earrings "as if her ears could be unbottoned to further secrets even there."
  
• Toussaint Rennie, who was "one of those chuckling men you meet rarely, able to stave off time by perpetually staying in such high humor that the years didn't want to interrupt him." 
• Perry Fox, who was "slow as the wrath of Christ, but steady."
  
• Jink's mother, of whom his father said, "I think that being married to you is worth all the risk." 
  

I simply loved this book, its attention to quiet detail and its clarity of writing. Conversations seem easy to listen to, people appear subtly complex, and the environment always presents a force that beckons to be explored and appreciated. I think everyone should indulge in this encompassing look into a world we rarely glimpse, much less easily comprehend today.

Best of all, this is the first in a trilogy of the McCaskill family life in Two Medicine, Montana: Dancing at the Rascal Fair and Ride With Me, Mariah Montana. Can't wait to indulge myself in these next two absorbing books.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Doig, Ivan. The Whistling Season.   

A Chicago woman in 1909 answers an advertisement for a housekeeper for a widower and his three young sons living in an isolated Montana town. She writes that she "Can't cook, but doesn't bite," and gets the job sight unseen (by both of them). She brings her brother with her on the train and he reluctantly becomes a unique schoolteacher. Simply wonderful, a great read not to be missed.  (previously reviewed here)