Ivan Doig (1939–2015)

Join Cindi and discuss books from a variety of genres at 7 pm, the first Monday of each month. Authors DO NOT Attend.

The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig

Tom Harry has a streak of frost in his black pompadour and a venerable bar called The Medicine Lodge, the chief watering hole and last refuge of the town of Gros Ventre, in northern Montana. Tom also has a son named Rusty, an “accident between the sheets” whose mother deserted them both years ago.The pair make an odd kind of family, with the bar their true home, but they manage just fine.

Location: Street: 1200 11th St City: Bellingham, Province: Washington Postal Code: 98225-7015 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)

Phone today and reserve a memorable, exclusive discussion with celebrated American author and Seattle resident Ivan Doig, at The Willows Inn on Lummi Island. You will receive a personal copy of Sweet thunder and take part in small-group, private discussion with Ivan Doig at the Willows' scenic Loganita Farm—followed by a private dinner at the Taproot Cafe.

Choose from among three packages: (1) 1st-day only; (2) one-day with overnight stay, or (3) stay two nights and reserve your seat for Chef Blaine Wetzel’s dinner Thursday, Oct. 17 when you call 360.758.2620 to register. The agenda:

Discussion, private dinner, personal copy of Sweet thunder – $75/person Rooms available starting at $125 for Wednesday, Oct. 16 Two-Night Package: Includes room, private dinner, discussion, personal copy of Sweet thunder, and a reservation in our Main Dining Room for Chef Wetzel’s dinner. Rates: $475 Single, $625 Double About Ivan Doig:

With 15 books published since his debut in 1978, Doig has solidified his place as a national treasure and one of the most celebrated writers of the American West. From his first book, the National Book Award-winning This House of Sky, Doig has made a unique—and uniquely successful—contribution to American literature. Last year’s The Bartender’s Tale, published when he was 70, landed him for the first time on the New York Times bestseller list. The book garnered exceptional reviews across the board, and, in the best-of-2012 flurry, a Washington Post pick for Best Fiction, a Booklist Editors’ Choice, and more.

In Ivan Doig’s latest book, it’s 1919 and Morrie Morgan, who debuted in The Whistling Season and returned in Work Song, finds himself back in Butte, Montana, as the chief editorialist for the Thunder, the upstart newspaper brave enough to challenge the ruthless Anaconda Company and its stranglehold on the copper boomtown. Doig thrusts his protagonist into a world of corporate intimidation and union politics, gangsters and bootlegging, offering all of the suspense and intrigue of a Gilded Age tale set largely against the backdrop of the old-fashioned newsroom.

Dramatically arresting and episodically entertaining, Sweet thunder is Ivan’s most autobiographical novel to date. He spent years as an editorial writer for the Lindsay-Schaub syndicate in Decatur, then as an editor for the Evanston-based magazine The Rotarian. This fantastic new novel is a love song to newspapers and the countless writers, reporters, and editors who bring them to life each day, and to the readers who know the world through them, both in their old-fashioned print version and in their new-fangled digital form.

Ivan Doig grew up along the Rocky Mountain front in Montana, the dramatic landscape that has inspired much of his writing. A former ranch hand, newspaperman, and magazine editor, with a Ph.D. in history to boot, Doig is the author of 15 previous novels, most recently The Bartender’s Tale, and three works of nonfiction, including his classic first book, This House of Sky. He has been a National Book Award finalist and has received the Wallace Stegner Award, a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association, and multiple PBNA Awards, among other honors. He lives in Seattle.

Please call 360.758.2620 to register for this event.

Location: Street: 2579 West Shore Drive Additional: The Willows Inn City: Lummi Island, Province: Washington Postal Code: 98262 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)

Thursday, September 19, 7 p.m. Join Ivan Doig in a SKYPE interview as he reads from his novel Sweet thunder. It’s 1919 and Morrie Morgan, who debuted in Doig’s The Whistling Season and returned in Work song, finds himself back in Butte, Montana, as the chief editorialist for the "Thunder", the upstart newspaper brave enough to challenge the ruthless Anaconda Company and its stranglehold on the copper boomtown. Doig thrusts his protagonist into a world of corporate intimidation and union politics, gangsters and bootlegging, offering all of the suspense and intrigue of a Gilded Age tale set largely against the backdrop of the old-fashioned newsroom. Check out the new trailer for Sweet thunder! del.icio.us Facebook Google StumbleUpon Twitter Yahoo

Location: Street: 1511 South 1500 East City: Salt Lake City, Province: Utah Postal Code: 84105 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)

With fifteen books published since his debut in 1978, Doig has solidified his place as a national treasure and one of the most celebrated writers of the American West. From his first book, the National Book Award-winning This house of sky, Doig has made a unique—and uniquely successful—contribution to American literature. Last year’s The Bartender’s Tale, published when he was 70, landed him for the first time on the New York Times bestseller list, garnering exceptional reviews across the board, and, in the best-of-2012 flurry, a Washington Post pick for Best Fiction, a Booklist Editors’ Choice, and more.

In Ivan Doig’s latest book, it’s 1919 and Morrie Morgan, who debuted in The Whistling Season and returned in Work song, finds himself back in Butte, Montana, as the chief editorialist for the Thunder, the upstart newspaper brave enough to challenge the ruthless Anaconda Company and its stranglehold on the copper boomtown. Doig thrusts his protagonist into a world of corporate intimidation and union politics, gangsters and bootlegging, offering all of the suspense and intrigue of a Gilded Age tale set largely against the backdrop of the old-fashioned newsroom.

Dramatically arresting and episodically entertaining, Sweet thunder is Ivan’s most autobiographical novel to date. He spent years as an editorialist for the Lindsay-Schaub syndicate in Decatur, then as an editor for the Evanston-based magazine The Rotarian. This fantastic new novel is a love song to newspapers and the countless writers, reporters, and editors who bring them to life each day, and to the readers who know the world through them, both in their old-fashioned print version and in their new-fangled digital form.

A third-generation Montanan, Ivan Doig grew up along the Rocky Mountain Front, the dramatic landscape that has inspired much of his writing. A former ranch hand, newspaperman, and magazine editor, with a Ph.D. in history to boot, Doig is the author of fifteen previous novels, most recently The Bartender's Tale, and three works of nonfiction, including his classic first book, This house of sky. He has been a National Book Award finalist and has received the Wallace Stegner Award, a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association, and multiple PBNA Awards, among other honors. He lives in Seattle. Read the Seattle Times review of Sweet thunder here.

Location: Street: 1200 11th St City: Bellingham, Province: Washington Postal Code: 98225-7015 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)

Set on the cusp of the 1960s and shadowed by the Great Depression, The Bartender's Tale revolves around a one-of-a-kind father, his son, and a bar that is the lifeblood of a small town in northern Montana. Tom Harry has a streak of frost in his black pompadour and a venerable bar called The Medicine Lodge. He also has a son named Rusty, an "accident between the sheets" whose mother deserted them both years ago. The pair manages a fulfilling, albeit odd, life together, until the summer of 1960, that is, when change arrives with gale force in the person of Proxy, a taxi dancer Tom knew back when, and her beatnik daughter, Francine. Is Francine, as Proxy claims, the unsuspected legacy of her and Tom’s past? As Rusty struggles to decipher the oddities of adult behavior and the mysteries build toward a reckoning, Doig wonderfully captures how the world becomes bigger and the past becomes more complex in the last moments of childhood.

Ivan Doig was born in Montana and grew up along the Rocky Mountain Front, the dramatic landscape that has inspired much of his writing. A former ranch hand, newspaperman, and magazine editor, with a Ph.D. in history to boot, Doig is the author of ten previous novels, most recently Work song, and three works of nonfiction, including his classic first book, This house of sky. He has been a National Book Award finalist and has received the Wallace Stegner Award, a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association, and multiple PBNA Awards, among other honors. He lives in Seattle.

Location: Street: 1200 11th St City: Bellingham, Province: Washington Postal Code: 98225-7015 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)

Bestselling author Ivan Doig returns with a vintage Americana novel, The Bartender’s Tale. In a small town in northern Montana, Tom Harry owns and operates a bar which is the hub of the town’s social life and makes a living for himself and his son, Rusty, whose mother deserted them years ago. With the arrival of Tom’s past girlfriend and her daughter, Rusty’s world becomes bigger and the past appears more complex in the last moments of his childhood.

Location: Street: Auntie's Bookstore/Mezzanine Additional: 402 W. Main Ave. City: Spokane, Province: Washington Postal Code: 99201-0214 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)

Don't miss an evening with Ivan Doig! Prepay for the book and receive reserved seating and double Eagle Harbor Dozen stamps!

The Bartender's Tale is the story of a father and son left on their own in a shifting world _- a tale in itself as old as kinship, but ever new in the way "the bachelor saloonkeeper with a streak of frost in his black pompadour and the inquisitive 11-year-old boy who had been an accident between the sheets" go about life in the small Montana town of Gros Ventre in 1960.

Tom Harry, the nonpariel bartender and proprietor of the "nearly holy oasis," the Medicine Lodge, has a past he won't talk about and a habit of sudden disappearances for a few days, which plagues his impressionable son, Rusty, as does the unexplained absence of his mother ever since he was born. In their otherwise companionable bachelor life together, Rusty has free run of the saloon's fantastic back room. And in the momentous summer that is the heart of the novel, he shares this secret aperture into the often mystifying world of grownups with Zoe, the new girl down the street whose imagination outdoes even his own amid the wonders of the back of the saloon.

History, as it tends to do, arrives to these prime characters with gale force, first in the person of enthusiastic young oral historian Del Robertson and then in the shapely form of Proxy, an unforgettable taxi dancer in Tom's earlier fabled saloon in a Fort Peck dam boomtown. Proxy comes bearing life-changing news, of the sort that leaves Rusty and Zoe marveling at what grownups get themselves into. The tale unfolds in Rusty's richly reminiscent voice, leading to the climax where a catastrophe delivers them all trials of conscience. In sum, this is a warmhearted yet consequential family saga in the spirited storytelling tradition of William Faulkner's The Reivers and Isak Dinesen's Winter's Tales.

Location: Street: 157 Winslow Way E. City: Bainbridge Island, Province: Washington Postal Code: 98110 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)