The Whistling Season

By: Ivan Doig

Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan

Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

When a widowed rancher hires a housekeeper to help with his three young sons, he finds her to be cheerful and competent. Yet she is concealing a colorful and infamous past. Filled with humor and hardship, this novel sings with what the author calls "a poetry of the vernacular".

A finalist for the National Book award, Ivan Doig, who has published 11 books, has been hailed as the "West's preeminent literary novelist" by the Denver Post.

©2006 Ivan Doig (P)2006 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"The Whistling Season is a book to pass on to your favorite readers: a story of lives of active choice, lived actively." (Publishers Weekly)

Top 10 all time favorite books

Beautifully written, engaging charming story and perfectly read. This is one of my new all time favorites.

I loved every minute of it!

Such a great book! The writing is engaging and the characters are charming and full of depth. The story is comforting and thrilling at the same time!

Great story

Wonderfully written. Poor audio editing. Some chapters seem cut off. Would recommend to all for a good listen.

A nice visit

I loved the narrator of the book. His voice was perfect with the mood of the story. It was a great book and I felt a little "old timey" while listening. The last chapter has an interesting twist. Still don't know if I liked it or not. Hmmmm.....

Loved the story & lessons it held

Wanted it to go on and on. Beautifully written story of tribulation, overcoming them, and second chances.

Beauty and humor and appreciation for the language.

Doig knows the soul of Montana.
He writes almost lyrically, with a love of land.

Lovely

Doig’s a master storyteller and he lives up to his reputation with The Whistling Season. Narrator Jonathan Hogan brings the story to life as Paul. Both funny and poignant this book is one of my favorites of Doig.

What a sweet read

This book is beautifully written and performed. The story is wonderful and has the feel of clearly depicting a time gone by. There were times I laughed out loud. The characters had life and I was interested in them and their lives.

If you have never read Doig before, this is a great first read. You'll be hooked.

The Whistling Season was awesome!

Ivan Doig is a wonderful storyteller. He writes in such a way that you are brought into the book right away and don't want to put it down. His characters are real, flawed, funny, and ultimately very human. An excellent book for teens and older.

Enjoyed this book while driving across MT to visit Glacier NP

My family loved this book as well as the narrator. We have three boys, my husband is a teacher, and I work in politics, so there was much that we resonated with.

The story and characters were very engaging, with enough twists and turns to keep it from being pat and predictable. The author did a great job of establishing a sense of time and place. We particularly enjoyed his insightful descriptions of the dynamics between brothers, classmates in a one room schoolhouse, and adults and children. We liked the main character and narrator Paul as he navigates the challenges of being the oldest of three brothers in a recently motherless household, as well as a 60 something MT superintendent of public schools tasked with closing down the one room school houses that were such a critical part of his own childhood.

The narrator was a delight to listen to: very evocative without being heavy handed. He did a particularly nice job with Doig's many clever and ironic turns of phrase.

This one has me wanting to look up other books by the author as well as other books narrated by this actor.