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Published Aug 2015
464 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
The final novel from a great American storyteller.
Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Ivan Doig's beloved Two Medicine Country of the Montana Rockies, a landscape that gives full rein to an eleven-year-old's imagination. But when Gram has to have surgery for "female trouble" in the summer of 1951, all she can think to do is to ship Donal off to her sister in faraway Manitowoc, Wisconsin. There Donal is in for a rude surprise: Aunt Kate – bossy, opinionated, argumentative, and tyrannical - is nothing like her sister. She henpecks her good-natured husband, Herman the German, and Donal can't seem to get on her good side either. After one contretemps too many, Kate packs him back to the authorities in Montana on the next Greyhound. But as it turns out, Donal isn't traveling solo: Herman the German has decided to fly the coop with him. In the immortal American tradition, the pair light out for the territory together, meeting a classic Doigian ensemble of characters and having rollicking misadventures along the way.
Charming, wise, and slyly funny, Last Bus to Wisdom is a last sweet gift from a writer whose books have bestowed untold pleasure on countless readers.
"Starred Review. 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
"Starred Review. Yes, this tale displays the sentimentality and antic prose to which Doig always was prone, but it is such an utterly charming, goodhearted romp that readers will willingly immerse themselves in the all-pervasive sweetness of the story like Depression-era moviegoers flocking to a Preston Sturges comedy." - Booklist
"A classic picaresque…[with] all manner of entertaining characters." – Library Journal
"An 'esential' summer read" - Miami Herald
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ivan Doig was born in Montana and grew up along the Rocky Mountain Front, the dramatic landscape that inspired much of his writing. A former ranch hand, newspaperman, and magazine editor, Doig was the author of 13 novels, most recently The Bartender's Tale, Sweet Thunder and Last Bus to Wisdom (Aug 2015), and four works of nonfiction, including his classic first book, the memoir This House of Sky. He was a National Book Award finalist and received the Wallace Stegner Award and a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association, among numerous other honors.
His major theme is family life in the past, mixing personal memory and regional history. The first three Montana novels—English Creek, Dancing at the Rascal Fair, and Ride with Me, Mariah Montana—form the...
... Full Biography
Link to Ivan Doig's Website
Name Pronunciation
Ivan Doig: iven doig (first syllable of last name rhymes with toy)
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