The Bartender's Tale (Ivan Doig)

      
  A good read most definitely. It wasn't faced paced though. Neither was life during the fifties and 1960 when the bulk of the book took place in the mid west. This was my first Doig and I'm confident it won't be my last, a copy of the Whistling Season is on my to do list. 

What we have here is a very knowledgeable and experienced writer who handles the characters of man and son in a way that makes you long for the old times before everything went all Facebook on us and Reality TV took over using your "swuft" imagination.

Tom Harry is a bartender like no other. He plays his part perfectly and owns the Medicine Lodge in a small town of two bars and he knows how to keep his customers happy. They run from the ornery sheephearders to editors of the paper and five times divorced women. His son, Rusty, comes into Tom's life at age 6 and what the reader witnesses is how a six year old processes what it means to live with a bachelor of a man who might not know all there is to know about having a kid.

Fast forward 6 years where most of the story takes place, that of the summer where Rusty is 12 and a girl named Zoe comes into his life as the best gift summer could offer as the two hide out in the bars back room to spy on the place. 
A woman, Proxie comes into Tom's life and we find out they had a fling way back when that produced a daughter. This daughter, 21 year old Francine, is to help Tom out with the bar- he was about to sell the place. And then there's Del. He's a historian in the making.

There are a few minor twists but nothing too crazy. The novel definitely has a 50's sitcom feel.  It's swell and has a few "ess of a bee's" in it. I liked the descriptions of the land and I'm always a sucker for narratives told through the eyes of a precocious kid. 

Doig is good. Real good. I do have to admit it was a little bit slow at times but I think that's because so many books these days have spoiled us with "riveting text" each outdoing the next with crazy plot turns and over the top situations. Sometimes you just want a plain cup of coffee, no syrups or foaming milk or fancy names. Just coffee.