Dancing At The Rascal Fair

Ivan Doig, “Dancing At The Rascal Fair” Macmillian, 1987, 440 pps

I am reading this author’s books in reverse publication order, not by plan, just happenstance. “The Whistling Season”, C2006 I read first and really enjoyed, “The Eleventh Man”, C2008 was next and was OK, this present book falls again in the OK category. I have a fourth book from this author sitting next to me and if I don’t get my non-fiction books from the library by tomorrow (I am on the waiting list for them) I will begin his fourth book—maybe. Of course I could try and read Ulysses for the fourth time!

This book begins in 1889 when two young Scottish lads, Angus McCaskill and Robert Barklay, begin their immigration to Montana from Scotland. They choose Montana because an uncle of one of the boys has previously immigrated to this area; they find this uncle who has lost both hands but not his enthusiasm for getting on with life. The book accurately describes the trials that the harsh conditions of homesteading in this territory at the turn of the century presented. My Grandparents homesteaded in the Dakotas at the turn of the century so I was particularly interested in the descriptions of this sort of life.