The Bartender's Tale

The Bartender's Tale is Ivan Doig's latest novel. I would never want to live in Montana (about which my daughter remarked: "Did you know there are four states in a row, all called Montana?"), but I sure enjoy visiting the Two Medicine and English Creek areas Doig writes about.
Tom Harry gave over the raising of his son Russell, who prefers Rusty, to his sister after Rusty's mother deserted them both when he was just a couple months old. The boy has endured endless hours of torture from his older cousins with only occasional visits by his father. Then, the summer he turns six, Tom unexpectedly shows up at his sister's home in Arizona and tells Rusty to pack up his things, he's taking him home to Montana. The boy is elated to be out of the grips of his tormentors, but uncertain what lies ahead with his father, the owner of The Medicine Lodge Saloon in the small town of Gros Ventre in northern Montana.
Tom and his son settle into a comfortable, bachelor-like routine. Rusty learns his Dad's way of opening a can of soup for breakfast. After school he does his homework in the room behind the bar until bedtime when he retreats to their nearby house, always awakening when his father comes in after closing the bar in order to tell him good night. Things don't change much until the summer of his twelfth birthday when new people come to town, including a woman from Tom's past along with her daughter - whom she claims is also Tom's daughter. She wants to leave the 21-year-old with Tom to learn the bar-tending business.
It is a summer of great change for Rusty. He's becoming an adult. He is finally learning more about his father's past, and he is struggling to understand his feelings for the new co-conspirator in his life - another 12-year-old by the name of Zoe.
Doig's books seem quiet and unassuming, but they leave you with the feeling of having just become intimately acquainted with people you would really like to know. I love his writing. I recommend his books to men and women alike.

Anna Quindlen is another author I try to read all she writes. Her most recent book is a memoir, Lots Of Candles, Plenty Of Cake. I was so excited about the first half of the book - all the quotable quotes about what life was like when she (and I) were young. What it was like when we were raising children and what it is like to be getting older.
The opening line of the book: "It's odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn't know who I was. Then I invented someone and became her. Then I began to like what I'd invented. And finally I was what I was again."
Up until about two-thirds of the way through, I was thinking, "Younger women should read this book so they will know what lies ahead and know how their mothers and grandmothers are feeling now." Somewhere after that the book strayed off course for me; became less interesting. I just wanted to finish it and be done. Maybe the problem was Quindlen had said it all in 140 pages, but needed to fill 180. Or maybe I just lost interest.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend reading it. I liked what she said about down-sizing - getting rid of 'stuff' and not letting our possessions possess us. The last section of the book is titled "To Be Continued" which probably means she plans to write another memoir in a few more years. And I'll probably read it - if I'm still around.

Lynda Rutledge's debut novel, Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale is also about down-sizing and getting rid of stuff. But Faith is seventy years old and suffering from dementia. It is the last day of the millennium, December 31, 1999. God has told her she must have a sale before she dies which she is convinced will be before midnight. She puts up a sale sign in front of the Bass Family Mansion, starts pulling priceless antiques and family heirlooms out onto the lawn and proceeds to sell them for next to nothing. (Twenty dollars for an 1869 Deluxe Banker's "S" Oak Roll-top Desk. Value: $8,000)
From the inside cover: "As the townspeople grab up the heirlooms of five generations of the town's founding family, a crowd gathers to witness the sale or try to stop it. Faith's estranged daughter, Claudia, is summoned home, but after spending half her life running away from Faith and the day everything changed forever, she's not sure she can face them all again.
Bobbie Blankenship, the town's antique shop owner, who spent her childhood dreaming of life in the big Bass mansion, can't believe her luck - but will her conscience get in the way of making a killing? Deputy Sheriff John Jasper Johnson, who owes Faith his life, knows he's got to save her from herself, but can he find a way to stop the sale before everything is gone? And the one person Faith actually calls for help, Father George A. Fallow, is having a crisis of faith.
Before the day is over, they will all examine their roles in the great Bass family saga, as well as some of life's most imponderable questions: Do our possessions possess us? What are we without our memories? Is there life after death or second chances here on earth? And is Faith Darling really selling that 1917 Louis Comfort Tiffany lamp for $1?
There were times, reading some of the parts about dementia and what it was like for Faith, that really got to me because I was remembering my own mother's decline into that same hell. But over-all, I liked the book. It was one of those I just had to pick up based on the title and cover photo.