Ivan Doig was a third-generation Montanan and the author of fifteen previous books, including the bestselling The Bartender’s Tale and The Whistling Season and the classic memoir This House of Sky. He was a National Book Award finalist and received the Wallace Stegner Award, among many other honors. Doig lived in Seattle with his wife, Carol, for many years until his death.
Praise for Last Bus to Wisdom:
Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews
Named a Best Book of the Summer by the Chicago Tribune, the
Miami Herald, and Paste Magazine
“One of Doig’s best novels…enchanting … It’s warming to think that
in his final months [he] shared the writing hours with one of his
greatest characters: a version of his younger self wound up and set
spinning on the long zigzag adventure called life in the American
West.” -The New York Times Book Review
“With his final novel Doig aptly crowns a luminous literary
legacy…'Last Bus to Wisdom' is a deeply humane coming-of-age tale
set in the early 1950s…Forever the master of colorful characters
and landscapes reflecting the vastness and vulnerability of the
human heart, Doig has left us with a rollicking road trip filled
with both.” -Seattle Times
“[T]he true successor to the dean of Western writers, Wallace
Stegner…Last Bus to Wisdom is a rambunctious adventure packed with
color, vitality and characters worth rooting for… a masterful
fusion of picaresque exploits and ripping yarns.” -The San
Francisco Chronicle
“The chimerical tale is moving, vivid and funny… Doig's adolescent
narrator recalls his literary cousins, Scout Finch, Augie March,
Huck Finn, Claudia MacTeer, as his open-hearted curiosity provides
readers a sense of unmediated engagement with an expanding
world…Last Bus to Wisdom takes us back 65 years to an era when
the West was a little more rugged and the ethos of wide, open
spaces allowed for mythical endings.” -Chicago Tribune
“[D]elightful…Last Bus to Wisdom is a sweet novel, a fitting and
fine last work from a writer we’ll miss for his endearing stories,
his engaging characters and his enduring humanity.” -Minneapolis
Star Tribune
“[A] fun summer read, and a way to pay tribute to Doig’s wonderful
combination of memory and imagination that gives us one more vision
of the unique history of the American West.” -Christian Science
Monitor
“Over the course of a 36-year literary career, Doig…painted as
detailed and complete a picture of the American West as any writer
of the last century....[and] remained, at heart, an old-fashioned
storyteller...Last Bus to Wisdom is an unpredictable and boisterous
road novel…[that] offers a fresh take on several familiar Doig
themes: nontraditional families, deep connection to the land, the
West as a hardscrabble world of work and the profoundly (and often
humorously) interwoven nature of everyday individual lives and
political and social history.” –Paste
“Last Bus to Wisdom is a treasure; one suspects that the
beloved Ivan Doig--a red-haired boy who lived with his grandmother
and grew up to tell stories--chuckled as he plotted to leave his
readers a part of himself.” -Shelf Awareness (starred)
“A delightful sprawl of a novel… big-hearted, joyfully meandering
work by a master.” –Bookpage
“Chockfull of rollicking humor, blissfully good storytelling and
characters so alive on the page they live on in the reader’s mind,
Doig’s last book is a paean to this country as it existed half a
century ago… [Last Bus is] so purely involving and so much fun to
read, it’s easy to label as an American classic, as is Ivan Doig
the most engaging storytelling the West has ever known.” -KUER-FM
“Books & Beats”
"[Last Bus] is a book worthy of its author’s enduring legacy in
Montana and the rest of the English-reading world.” -Bozeman Daily
Chronicle
“Last Bus to Wisdom...does what all [Doig's] best books have done:
given us indelible characters of the American west -- timeless,
beautifully flawed, interesting people who never give up trying to
find happiness in life.” -Omnivoracious.com
“A fitting finale…Last Bus is rich in details about Montana as it
was in the early 1950s, seen through a boy’s eyes on a grand
adventure.” –Great Falls Tribune
“[Last Bus] contains…[Doig’s] trademark wonderful writing about the
Western landscape, and plenty of gentle humor…Doig will be missed
by his many faithful readers, and for them, this last offering will
be welcome and bittersweet.” -Portland Oregonian
“Last Bus to Wisdom is the last story from one of the great
storytellers of our time. The world moves on, as it invariably
does. But it moves on without Ivan Doig and, in his absence, is
much less full than it was in his novels.” -Fredericksburg
Freelance Star
"A big-hearted, joyfully meandering work by a master." -Book
Page
“Doig has thoroughly engaged readers' sympathies for his
high-spirited yet vulnerable protagonist…Enjoyable coincidences
abound, and a leisurely storyline with plenty of twists gives the
author ample room to display his knack for vivid thumbnail sketches
and bravura descriptions… A marvelous picaresque showing off the
late Doig's ready empathy for all kinds of people and his perennial
gift for spinning a great yarn. He will be missed.” –Kirkus Reviews
(starred)
"An utterly charming, goodhearted romp...this posthumous
publication will be greeted enthusiastically as a fitting tribute
to a memorable body of work." -Booklist (starred)
“The pleasures of reading Doig’s final novel are bittersweet. His
familiar themes are here: love for his native Montana, and his
astute observation of and admiration for the tough homesteaders and
ranchers who eke out a hardscrabble living… Funny, suspenseful, and
nostalgic, [Last Bus to Wisdom] is a rollicking tale set during the
summer of 1951…heartwarming [and] memorable.” –Publisher's
Weekly
"Doig’s superb storytelling does not disappoint. The dialog is
snappy, funny, and true to the charming characters. With the
author’s passing in April, this is the last journey into familiar
Doig territory we’ve come to admire." –Library Journal
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
