From Publishers Weekly
In his rambling, sluggishly paced seventh novel, noted western novelist Doig explores the discord that racism sows in the Montana wilderness during the Roaring 20s. Susan Duff, the schoolgirl nightingale from his Montana trilogy's middle book, Dancing at the Rascal Fair, is now in her 40th year, unmarried, working in Helena giving singing lessons to the upper crust. Her former adulterous lover, the charismatic WWI hero and once gubernatorial hopeful Wes Williamson, reappears and persuades Susan to abandon her other students in order to develop the untrained voice of his African-American chauffeur, Monty Rathbun, with an eye to putting him on the professional stage. Because Monty is black, Susan moves the lessons to the seclusion of her family ranch in mountainous Two Medicine country. But overnight prosperity from oil and copper has brought motorcars and telephones, so secrets are not easily kept. Soon, the KKK makes its presence felt, and Susan's home is vandalized. Though Wes quickly routs the bigots, Monty flees, resurfacing in New York during the Harlem Renaissance, where he attains overnight celebrity as a singer of spirituals. Of course, for black men and adulterous lovers in the 1920s, the course of fame and secret passion is still fraught with peril, and more trouble lies in wait for all. The fine plot is disrupted by frequent flashbacks, paeans to unspoiled landscape, Scottish genealogy and western lore, but those who don't mind digressive storytelling will appreciate yet another Montana saga from one of the state's best-known chroniclers.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Doig returns to several of the characters from his much-loved Dancing at the Rascal Fair (1987) in this gripping story set not only in Montana's Two Medicine country, the landscape indelibly associated with the author, but also in New York during the Harlem Renaissance. It's 1924, and Susan Duff, the headstrong schoolgirl from Rascal Fair, is now a middle-aged voice teacher in Helena, resigned to spinsterhood after her affair with gubernatorial candidate Wes Williamson cost him the election. Then Wes seeks her out with a proposition: teach his black chauffeur, Monty, to sing. Returning to Two Medicine country, Susan does just that, as the narrative twists and turns its way back into the pasts of the three principal characters and ahead into their shared futures in New York: Monty on the concert stage and Susan and Wes, their relationship still tumultuous, in the wings. As always, Doig incorporates a vast amount of fascinating historical material into his personal drama: the story of the "Buffalo soldiers" of the tenth cavalry in the late nineteenth century; the saga of the Ku Klux Klan's incursion into Montana; and, of course, the Harlem Renaissance itself. The heart of the matter, though, is the three-sided relationship among Susan, Wes, and Monty; skirting the melodrama into which this triptych might easily have tumbled, Doig tightens the reins on his sometimes mannered prose and constructs a subtle, highly textured love story, nicely balancing period detail and well-modulated emotion. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"Ivan Doig never disappoints those who love good writing, and Prairie Nocturne is Doig at his best." --Tony Hillerman, author of The Wailing Wind and The Sinister Pig

"One of [Doig's] most ambitious projects yet with its complexity of social and cultural issues nestled in the deceptive serenity of the American West." --Jennie A. Camp, Rocky Mountain News

"Ivan Doig has staked a claim as one of Montana's essential literary witnesses." --Grace Lichtenstein, The Washington Post


Review
"The West's pre-eminent literary novelist...Doig's characters, new and old, are unforgettable...they are becoming a part of the American mindscape."-- Ron Franscell, The Denver Post


Review
Kirkus Reviews (starred) Doig does his usual splendid job of interweaving several time frames to bring alive American history and to chart the evolving relationships of thorny, independent people who love fiercely but never go easy on one another or themselves....It all combines to create a compelling story that ends too soon.


Book Description
Prairie Nocturne is the epic saga of two former lovers sired in the pages of Ivan Doig's acclaimed Montana Trilogy. Susan Duff -- the bossy, indomitable schoolgirl with a silver voice from Dancing at the Rascal Fair-- has reached middle age alone, teaching voice lessons to the progeny of Helena's high society. Wesley Williamson, young married heir to the Double W cattle empire, has been forced out of a political career as a result of his affair with Susan having become known. Years later, Wes and Susan have reunited to share in an extraordinary goal: launching the singing career of Monty Rathbun--a man on the wrong side of the racial divide. In this triumph of sure-footed storytelling, motives and fates dangerously entangle. Set in Montana, France, Scotland, and New York during the Harlem Renaissance, Prairie Nocturne is a deeply longitudinal novel that raises everlasting questions of allegiance, the grip of the past, and the cost of passion.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Susan Duff - the bossy, indomitable schoolgirl with a silver voice from the pages of Doig's most popular work, Dancing at the Rascal Fair - has reached middle age alone, teaching voice lessons to the progeny of Helena's high society. Wesley Williamson - business scion of a cattle-empire family - has fallen from the heights of gubernatorial aspirations, forced out of a public career by political foes who uncovered his love affair with Susan. Years later, Susan is taken off guard when Wes arrives at her door with an unusual request: to train his chauffeur, Monty, in the ways of voice and performance.

Prairie Nocturne is the saga of these three people and their interlocked destinies. Monty is distantly known to Susan from their childhoods in the Two Medicine country, yet an enforced stranger because of the racial divide. When she realizes he possesses a singing voice of rare splendor, Susan joins Wes's Pygmalion-like project to launch Monty on a performing career - only to find the full force of the Ku Klux Klan in their way. As Monty and Susan overcome treacherous obstacles, Wes's mysterious motives unsettle everyone, including himself, and the trio's crossed fates form a deeply longitudinal novel that raises everlasting questions of allegiance, the grip of the past, and the costs of career and passion.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Washington Post

… by multiplying, deepening and texturing the genealogy of the Two Medicine country in the course of six novels, Doig has staked his claim as one of Montana's essential literary witnesses. Moreover, I don't know of any other serious Western novelist who has dared to call attention to the terrifying role the Ku Klux Klan played on the frontier in the 20th century. And no other writer since A.B. Guthrie has been more determined to evoke the supersized grandeur of Big Sky country, especially in a time when it was emptier and more suited to mythologizing than it is today. — Grace Lichtenstein

Library Journal

Doig's seventh novel, again set in Montana at the turn of the 20th century, is a sequel to earlier works (e.g., Bucking the Sun). Susan Duff, ever the recalcitrant singer, is now approaching middle age and living alone after a love affair with the wealthy Wesley Williamson. When Williamson's chauffeur, former rodeo clown Montgomery Rathbun, comes to him with the idea of honing his vocal talents, Williamson brings him to Susan. But Monty is black, and when he and Susan begin late-night voice lessons in a secluded cabin, thinking no one the wiser, its revelation incites the local Ku Klux Klan. Monty flees to New York, where he establishes a brilliant career as a singer of spirituals. On a concert tour back out west, however, old feuds reignite. Astute observers will recognize many of the plot lines of the Elvis Presley movie Jailhouse Rock, and the book would indeed make a good film. It's also an amiable enough read. Recommended for collections strong in Western literature.-Harold Augenbraum, Mercantile Lib. of New York Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews