Product Description

The author of This House of Sky provides a magnificent evocation of the Pacific Northwest through the diaries of James Gilchrist Swan, a settler of the region. Doig fuses parts of the Swan diaries with his own journal.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #136953 in Books
• Published on: 1982-10-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780156972154
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From the Publisher
7 1.5-hour cassettes

About the Author
IVAN DOIG is the author of ten previous books, including the novels Prairie Nocturne and Dancing at the Rascal Fair, most recently The Whistling Season, and three works of nonfiction, including This House of Sky.  A former ranch hand, newspaperman, and magazine editor, Doig holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Customer Reviews

I can't believe no one has rated this book yet!
I've enjoyed this delightful book more than once. Doig writes a travel narrative as he retraces the life and journeys of a fellow named Swan who left detailed daily diaries of life on Washington's Olympic Peninsula during the 1850s. This book provides an insightful look at the Pacific Northwest and the early interaction between settlers and the native Northwest Coast Makah tribes at Neah Bay and Cape Alava. This book is a must-read, just like Doig's "The Sea Runners" and Annie Dillard's "The Living," if you are to understand the Pacific Northwest of the past or present. Doig (via Swan's experiences living on the reservation as an English teacher to Makah children) discusses Haida native art and mythology as well as whale-hunting and potlatches. Just an awesome and insightful read, especially for a cold winter evening by the fire. Makes me want to pull out my copy and read it again, and again, and again.

Doig's journal of discovery in the diaries of James G. Swan

Ivan Doig found gold when he came across the unpublished diaries of James Gilchrist Swan in the Manuscripts Section of the University of Washington library. Swan was a pioneer on the Olympic Peninsular, living mainly among the Indians at Neah Bay and Cape Flattery, the western-most edge of the contiguous United States. Doig spent one full winter season, 90 days, living on the Peninsular, during which he kept a daily journal of his own, almost all of it incorporating an examination of Swan's 1862-1898 diaries. It's a fascinating book.

Doig, a prodigious writer himself, is ever in awe of the sheer massiveness of Swan's diary. Spread across dozens of pocket-sized (for the most part) diaries, comprising two-and-a-half million words, and spanning four decades, Swan's magnum opus recorded daily life, from the mundane ("swept out the schoolhouse again") to the (for him) magnificent (the Smithsonian finally gets around to publishing his manuscript on the Makah Indians). "The diaries dazzle and dazzle me" [Doig writes] "first simply by their total and variety." Again and again he reminds us of Swan's quantitative achievement, describing in loving detain the physicality of the diaries: their varying sizes, the neat handwriting, the care he took in recording weather information. He also quotes freely from them, in random clips, interesting encounters with people on the Peninsular: Indians come to him seeking advice, friends share drinks with him in a saloon, fishing and hunting trip companions shoot the breeze with him about the latest gossip. The diary seems a perfect marriage of the simple data of day-to-day life and Swan's loftier reflections on what they all might mean. Doig has obviously gained much from his 90 days spent with Swan and his extensive diary, and he makes us eager and willing companions in this exploration. It's my favorite of Doig's books. Highly recommended.

Had trouble getting into this one.
Generally, I love what Doig has written, but I had trouble getting into this book. I hung in and completed it; and by the end, I was sorry to finish it. I guess I'm saying I prefer his fiction.