The book is a memoir of the life of Ivan Doig, the author. Although the book is written in beautiful, poetic language, there is so little substance, in term of plot. This is mainly because it is a memoir, not a fiction book. Characters come and go during the course of the book, with no lasting impression. Places are more vivid than the people. The second half of the book moves more quickly than the first, perhaps because it is written more from the author's own memories, than the recollections of family and friends.

That said, the starkness of the Montana frontier is very vividly portrayed, as well as the hardships associated from eaking out a living from the land.

I am a cover-to-cover reader, so I was determined to finish this book, though it started out slow and confusing. I set aside an hour to focus on the book (because it's certainly not fluff that you can read amidst daily life). After 30 minutes, I gave up. It just wasn't interesting to me in the least. It didn't help that the chapters are so very long, making me feel like I was not making any progress whatsoever. Basically, I just didn't care about the characters or the story/memoir.

Although some could appreciate the difficulty of life situations presented in this book, the lack of emotion expressed and the absense of human connections made this book difficult to read and gave a number of the readers a feeling of pointlessness. Most of our club did not care to finish reading the book.

But it was an interesting read regarding the author's formative years and how he gained his writing style.

This book started off slow and stayed that way, until about 50 pages before the ending. That's when the writer finally started showing more emotion, and I could get more involved in the characters' lives. Until then, though, it was BRUTAL! I had a very difficult time finishing the book, but I finally did. The chapters are waaaay too long, which makes the reading that much harder.