The Whistling Season

by Ivan Doig

paperback from Amy Erickson 345 pages

Published: 2006

Genre: historical fiction

This has been sitting on my shelf for about four years and I'm glad I finally picked it up! I loved this story and its celebration of learning in a one-room schoolhouse in 1909 Montana. Paul Milliron is a delightful protagonist. His younger brothers and widowed father are in need of a housekeeper, but they get so much more than that when Rose Llewellyn and her brother show up. Halley's Comet, Paul's nightmares, Latin, horse races, farming, boxing, . . . the book drew me in and made me care about what happened to these people.

Page 18 - "A Nile of vein stood out on her frail temple as she worked herself up. What was behind such ardor? Rage of age? Life's revenge on the young? Or simply Aunt Eunice's natural vinegar pickling her soul?"

Please, Lord, don't let me grow up to be an Aunt Eunice. She was so negative and she seemed to strive to make everyone else as unhappy as she was! (Except sweet little Toby, of course!)

Page 40 - "My books already threatened to take over my part of the room and keep on going. Mother's old ones, subscription sets Father had not been able to resist, coverless winnowings from the schoolhouse shelf - whatever cargoes of words I could lay my hands on I gave safe harbor."

I love that language and that love of books!

Page 143 - "Having been around Morrie at his most systematic during our wood-sawing sessions, I knew perfectly well he was scraping through here in the schoolhouse much of the time on nerve and desperation, thumbing into things mere moments ahead of administering the next lesson to some bunch or another in the relentless stairstep system of eight grades in one room."

I can only imagine the challenge of teaching in a one-room schoolhouse . . . and shudder. Talk about multi-tasking! What a herculean challenge.

Page 263 - "I could not get rid of the thought that a kind of blindness had been put on Eddie Turley, and where did that fit in the beautiful workings of the universe?"

I loved that even as the schoolkids were planning their big Halley's comet event, Paul thought about Eddie (who he didn't get along with very well) and how Mr. Turley's insistence that Eddie leave school and go trapping with him . . . meant that Eddie was missing out.

Page 280 - "We filed to our seats for the afternoon with rare lack of conversation. Standard tests were relatively new in the educational scheme of things then, and those of us on the receiving end were not sure what we were in for."

Ugh. Standardized tests. And know they're big dollar and high stakes. 

Page 293 - "How distant and distinct it all is, that comet of nearly half a century ago and Morrie's triumph along with it. And how tear-streaked, today, under the scimitar of Sputnik. My eyes well up and there is nothing I can do about it. At my age now, tears should be saved for times of mortality. For the passing of loved ones and constant friends. For any whose life touched a tender spot in my own."

At times, the author's shift from 1909 to "modern day" 1960s was disconcerting. But adult Paul has such a different voice from the adolescent that it isn't really an issue. The reflectiveness that comes with age . . . 

Page 303 - "A lot more whistling." (Spoiler alert!)***

When their Father announces that he plans to marry Rose, the boys are silent. When Paul made this comment about how having Rose there would be different from when their mother was alive, he broke the ice. Rose whistled while she did housework. The title of the book. Yes. It all fits nicely.

Page 344 - "Even when it stands vacant the past is never empty."

As the adult revisits his childhood locales, his memories keep him company AND they inform his decisions. I loved this book and am eager to share it with Jodi!