The Whistling Season - Ivan Doig

I have a new favorite writer. My sister used to tell me how great Ivan Doig's books were, and she was right, at least based on my first Doig, The Whistling Season. Set in Montana in 1909-1910, The Whistling Season is the story of the Milliron family, with 13-year-old Paul as the moral compass and main character, and the city slickers from Chicago, Rose and her brother Morrie, who go West for a fresh start in life and end up rekindling life and hope for the Millirons.

Here is the GoodReads blurb that does a good job of capturing the essentials of the story:

"Can't cook but doesn't bite." So begins the newspaper ad offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition" that draws the hungry attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. And so begins the unforgettable season that deposits the noncooking, nonbiting, ever-whistling Rose Llewellyn and her fond-of-knowledge brother, Morris Morgan, in Marias Coulee along with a stampede of homesteaders drawn by the promise of the Big Ditch-a gargantuan irrigation project intended to make the Montana prairie bloom. When the schoolmarm runs off with an itinerant preacher, Morris is pressed into service, setting the stage for the "several kinds of education"-none of them of the textbook variety-Morris and Rose will bring to Oliver, his three sons, and the rambunctious students in the region's one-room schoolhouse. A paean to a vanished way of life and the eccentric individuals and idiosyncratic institutions that made it fertile, The Whistling Season is Ivan Doig at his evocative best.

What the blurb doesn't convey is the joie de vivre of the Milliron family, even as they are mourning the death of their mother, Paul and his two brothers are exuberant, each in his own way and following his passions and dealing with his own foibles. It doesn't convey the sense of community that the children of the homesteaders bring to their one-room schoolhouse--the backwards horse race is one of the best scenes I've ever read. And it doesn't convey the excellent writing, characterized by a deft turn of phrase that usually made me smile and sometimes even sigh.

Doig wrote only one stand-alone novel--the rest are grouped into series: Ivan Doig - Book Series In Order. The Whistling Series is the first in a trilogy, and I am eager to read the other two as I believe they contain the further adventures of Morrie Morgan, the greatest teacher on the planet, then or now. I absolutely loved the character of Morrie, and I particularly enjoyed how he taught his students about life, the universe, and everything using Halley's comet (which blazed back on the scene in 1910) as his teaching aid.

Other things I loved in this book--the spelling bees, Toby's broken toe, Eddie's glasses, Paul's dreams and the midnight cocoa conversations between Paul and Rose, and, of course, the mystery surrounding Rose and Morrie's background. 

BTW, Rose whistles while she works, hence the title. 

I love westerns, and I really love finding first-rate western writers. Bringing out my crystal ball, I think I'll be working my way through the Doig collection over the next year or so. He's a gem.