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| Mountain Time : A Novel | 
| Author: Ivan Doig
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
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You Save: $12.99 (100%)
New (38) Collectible (2) from $2.71
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 188747
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.5
ISBN: 0684865696
Dewey Decimal Number: 333
EAN: 9780684865690
ASIN: 0684865696
Publication Date: August 30, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Celebrated for his stirring, clear-eyed memoirs and novels of Montana--Dancing at the Rascal Fair, This House of Sky, and most recently Bucking the Sun--Ivan Doig vaults over the mountains in his new novel and lands in the midst of Seattle's fin-de-siecle coffee and computer culture. Mitch Rozier is an oversized, Montana-born, divorced, fiftysomething environmental columnist for a once-hip weekly newspaper on the verge of going under. Lexa McCaskill is his scrappy, earthy, no-nonsense "spousal equivalent"--a "compact Stetsoned woman in blue jeans," also from Montana and divorced, who makes a handsome living catering swanky parties for Seattle's software plutocrats. Doig has a fine time satirizing the excesses and absurdities of "Cyberia" before he abruptly shoos his characters back to Montana: Lyle Rozier, Mitch's Stegner-esque father, wants to involve his son in one more ransack-the-land scheme before leukemia kills him. The wary standoff between father and son works on many levels: as a deeply realistic clash between two fierce, disappointed men; as a symbolic confrontation between the Old West and the new--Lyle's frank, freewheeling exploitation of Montana's vastness versus Mitch's helpless reverence for the environment; and as a brief, brilliant history of how people have lived off and with the land in 20th-century Montana. All of these strands come together in a stunning climax played out against the glorious backdrop of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. One of the great novelists of the American West, Doig proves here that he is just as adept at conjuring up the vagaries of our shiny new cities as he is at taking the measure of rough, tough, old Montana. Mountain Time has everything going for it--great characters, breathtaking scenery, heartbreaking family feuds, wicked humor, a page-turning love story, prose so perfectly pitched you'll want to read it out loud. And there's something new for Doig aside from setting--a serene, twinkling levity. This is the work of a master having a hell of a good time. --David Laskin
Product Description
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 stalled at "just living together." Then, he is summoned by his sly, exasperating father, Lyle, back to the family land, which Lyle plans to sell in the latest of his get-rich schemes before dying. Lexa follows, accompanied by her sister Mariah, and the stage is set for long-overdue confrontations -- between lovers, sisters, and father and son. Mountain Time is distinguished by humor and a wry insight into the power of family feuds to mark individuals and endure. Set against the glorious backdrop of Montana mountain country, it is a dazzling novel of love, family, and the contemporary West.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Love the unpredictability of human behavior and the outstanding story October 28, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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 April 10, 2006
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.
 story interuptus May 13, 2005
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Scanning some of the reviews, I notice I felt many of the same impressions as other readers with this book. I just finished the trilogy, _Dancing at the Rascal Fair_, _English Creek_, and _Ride with Me, Mariah Montana_. The first two were the best, the last was so-so, and _Mountain Time_ just fell flat.
I found the conversations annoying, especially between Mitch's daughter and Mitch.The jargon was forced and very unflattering to the characters. The book was somewhat stiff to get into, but my respect for Mr. Doig encouraged me on. When the story line gets to Montana, it does pick up a bit and become more promising. The best part was the 3 day back pack trek into the mountains to scatter the ashes of Mitch's dad. Unfortunately, the cadence did not sustain itself, and the ending was spiritless.
Some considerations bothered me. For instance, I kept waiting to find out the cryptic reason Lyle was so intent on making Mitch promise to scatter his ashes up on the look out tower. I expected some message to be written on the walls, or some other justification for such an insistent request by the father, Lyle to be fulfilled by his son, Mitch. Another let down was the bit about the torn up camp site that the 3 characters come upon during their hike up the mountain, allegedly by a grizzly bear. We have torn up sleeping bags, (where's the bodies?) and a ripped up teepee. Alas, I thought!! A little action, mystery, hey, the story is going to pick up now..!!
But..,not exactly..
It looked promising for a while when they scuffled over the old man's ashes, and Mitch got seriously hurt. Lexa made the brave decision to be the one to hike out off the mountain for help, against the odds of time, weather and the elements to save her lover. Leaving her cutie sister, Mariah up in the watch tower as the nurse, the story alludes very suddenly to romance between her and Mitch. What? He has a broken leg, little food, stinky armpits and no alcohol. This was just too hard to swallow.. but it did suggest the story might improve.
But, ok, now Lexa is hiking down, the weather is worsening, food is low, she is exhausted and what is lurking in the woods but that big huge woolly grizzley bear. OK!! ACTION!
But, noooo.....
Suddenly the story is about over, Mitch is saved, Lexa is on the outs in favor of Mariah, and one feels the story can't get much worse when you have to read these side line reflections of Bob Marshall. (Who is Bob, many of you may ask?)
The last 15 pages you hope for some kind of conclusion to all these loose ends.. does Mitch repair his relationship with his kids, and if there is no furthur mention of them, why bring them in at all? There is the rushed explainations of the hobby buisnesses of Lyle and how he makes his tire irons (I didn't care) and this abrupt resumption of Mitch's and Lexa's love affair. All this in a fatal gasping ending.
Mr Doig, I loved your personal history books, _Heart Earth_ and _This House of Shy_. They were exquisite representations of the beautiful Montana area and a wonderful accounting of your incredible family. I promise not to let this book disappoint me so much that I won't read you again, indeed I am going to start your other books next.
It is just that this story was, well, a story interuptus..
 Top notch storytelling July 12, 2000
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
It's true this is not Ivan Doig's best work. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to top my favorite, Dancing at the Rascal Fair. Mr. Doig's storytelling is honest and straightforward; his wordsmithing in high form. Some of the reviews indicate trite characterization of western Washington, and an uninvolving story with unsurprising revelations. Not true if you come to this story with different expectations. Life in Washington isn't the point of this story (and what may seem trite seemed all to real to what I've seen here in Seattle. Mr. Doig writes issues many Baby Boomers may be facing or have confronted: a dying parent; coming to gripes with a parent's choices; life changes, in this case, the impact of divorce on self; loss of job. Having experienced aspects of what this story covered, I found the novel a good depiction of these issues and relationships. Yes, it takes a while to get into the story, but once in I found it quite satisfying.
 Still one of the West's best May 10, 2000
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
In Montana, not far from where Ivan Doig grew up beneath a big sky that still haunts him, three rivers flow together to form the deep and wide Missouri, lacing through both time and landscape, the old West and the new. And like the brawny Missouri, Doig has channeled three deep literary tributaries into "Mountain Time," a coda to his McCaskill family trilogy. Three people, three intense relationships, three rivers. "Mountain Time" is the confluence: The very real familial clash between Lyle and Mitch echoes the clash between the historic and contemporary West, where exploitation has always been at odds with environmental anxiety. "Mountain Time" will not dissuade those who rank Doig among the best living American writers, and one might even begin making comparisons to some of the best *dead* ones, too. Faulkner comes most readily to mind: The Snopeses of Yoknapatawpha County are no more troubled and no more human than the McCaskills of the Two Medicine country in Montana. Two great rivers in different landscapes.
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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