Mountain Time

by Ivan Doig

Book Overview

At fifty-something, environmental reporter Mitch Rozier has grown estranged from Seattle's coffee shop and cyber culture. His newspaper is going under, and his relationship with Lexa McCaskill is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 068483295X
• ISBN13: 9780684832951
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Love the unpredictability of human behavior and the outstanding story

This story provides the reader with characters that are so real, so unpredictable, so human, that the world around you is mirrored in each one. Not always pretty, not always rational, not always logical, just the kind of story that I love. And Doig weaves a fantastic story as he always does and it is one highly worth reading. I would not miss this modern look at Montana and its people.

Mountain Time by Ivan Doig

Ivan Doig is an excellent writer and Mountain Time rates as one of his best. He bases his books in Montana and provides outstanding pictures of the people, attitudes, landscape, and scenery of the state. I am a native Montanan and know both Seattle and Montana's Rocky Mountain Front. Both are accurately depicted here. Doig's description of a cafe that is "somewhere between unfinished and deteriorating" would fit any number of cafes in small-town Montana. On a plot level, Mountain Time presents some unique twists and many poignant moments that will keep the reader involved from the beginning to the end. This is not a book where you will guess the ending before you get there.

The original McCaskill lore is back!

For those who are familiar with Doig's subject family, the McCaskills, Mountain Time brings back the original powerful relationships between family members, as seen in English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair. I feel that Ride with Me, Mariah Montana lacked a great deal of the characterization found in the prior two novels, and now in Mountain Time. Doig also borrows from the mystery element of Bucking the Sun in his newest work. His language and word choice are definitely superior to any of his prior works, as much of Mountain Time read like poetry. I felt let down by Ride with Me, but Doig has given his readers a gift with Mountain Time.

Highly enjoyable read as with all Doig books

If you have never read a book by Ivan Doig, you're missing a wonderful collection of stories. As with earlier books, Mountain Time is largely set in Montana and Seattle and Doig makes it highly visual with his writing style. The terrain, the climate, the family generations and local customs are all described so well and so subtly that you will not immediately realize that he has transported you there. You will feel the story more than you read it. You will NOT be able to put this book down because you will be so committed to the characters and their search for meaning in life.

Ivan Doig-Zen Master-Mountains Won't Remember Us

A painted silk scroll from China shows a zen poet and calligrapher trying to capture the satori, the spontaneous enlightenment sometimes attained by the immensity of the landscape. The tree-lined mountains, and the winding creeks and brooks overshadow the artist who sits at his bench as incense plumes rise into the landscape.Ivan Doig has written what could be a zen contemplation with the power of a volcano in his newest work. It's not so much the wonderful characterization of the main characters and their innocence and fragility in terms of one another, but it is the way their bodies and minds, abused like much of the landscape, try desperately to connect.Generations must come to terms: a dying one that had survived the depression and had fought through two world wars and an aging one, "the baby boomers" who rebelled against older ideals but feel what it's like to age, and wonder, in a cloud of nostalgia; Are there resolutions? Between Father and Son? Wife and Husband? Daughter and Father? Man vs. Nature? All relationships are represented maginificently in Mountain Time. Nature casts a shadow on all the characters. The forests, the mountains, and the streams age with humanity, but they won't remember us.In short, an apt metaphor is Mt. St. Helens, which figures in the novel and which Doig brings alive as a character. No one can forget the force of power, the gray blast of hot ash, the blanket of destruction marking itself in the mind. And one can see, today, the renenwal and rebirth of the landscape even after such destruction.