The Bartender's Tale

By: Ivan Doig

Narrated by: David Aaron Baker

Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Nominee, Fiction, 2013

Time and again, Ivan Doig has proven himself to be a treasure of American letters. Critical darlings and New York Times best sellers, his novels target the heart of the human experience and never miss the mark.

The Bartender' s Tale stars Tom Harry and his 12-year-old son, Rusty, who live alone and run a bar in a small Montana town in the early 1960s. Their lives are upended when Proxy, a woman from Tom's past, and her beatnik daughter, Francine, breeze into town. Is Francine, as Proxy claims, the unsuspected legacy of her and Tom’s past? Without a doubt she is an unsettling gust of the future, upending every certainty in Rusty’s life and generating a mist of passion and pretense that seems to obscure everyone’s vision but his own.

As Rusty struggles to decipher the oddities of adult behavior and the mysteries build toward a reckoning, Ivan Doig wonderfully captures how the world becomes bigger and the past becomes more complex in the last moments of childhood.

©2012 Ivan Doig (P)2012 Recorded Books

Pure enjoyment!

What made the experience of listening to The Bartender's Tale the most enjoyable?

I'm going to Montana in a few weeks. After listening to this great story, I'll have a greater appreciation for northern Montana, with lots of smiles remembering the slag of times gone by. David Aaron Baker did a great job narrating this novel.

I loved it despite myself

I spent a long, long time not really liking this novel. But when I fell in, I fell hard. The characters and story are loveable and relatable.
I'm not familiar with this narrator but he SHINED in his interpretation of the characters.

A Wonderful Book

My normal Audible book involves shooting and assorted mayhem. They’re mostly ear candy for the road. Once in awhile I reach for something a bit different to keep my brain from turning to mush. In this instance I reached for The Bartender’s Tale and I was glad I did. The characters were sharp and consistent throughout and the narrator was dead on perfect except as regards the historian-he did indeed sound like Mickey Mouse. That one glitch aside, this is a marvelous book you will not regret listening to.

Great story

This is a delightful change from the action packed Sci Fi novels I listen to. Narrator is excellent and story kept my interest from beginning to end.

A thoughtful light read

Easy, enjoyable insightful story told from the point of view of the bartender son. Worth the read

So glad this book was recommended to me

Loved this coming of age story, the excellent building of characters, and the excellent narration. First time Ivan Doig book, but now eager to read more from this author.

Great Listen!

My three favorite topics are covered in this book! Bars, Fishing, and life’s wild ride.

Fantastic story!

This story really gave me a special feeling, having myself grown up in a small town in Montana at about the same time, the remeninces were in full. High Definition. The narathon was outstanding.

entertaining and historically interesting

this story both entertained and inspired me to want to visit historic fort peck reservoir

Captured me!

This is the second book that I have read by Ivan Doig, The Whistling Season being the first one. I am now a big fan of this author. He is an amazing story teller and I will seek out his other books. This story was enchanting and well crafted. Character development is excellent and I get to know and love the people he writes about. Wholesome stories are a welcome addition to my life and this author is a winner on that front!