IVAN DOIG was born in Montana in 1939 and grew up along the Rocky Mountain Front, the dramatic landscape that has inspired much of his writing. His first book, This House of Sky, was a finalist for the National Book Award in contemporary thought. “The language begins in western territory and experience but in the hands of an artist it touches all landscape and all life,” Robert Kirsch wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “Doig is such an artist,” Richard Critchfield added in the Washington Post, “Nor is Doig’s gift merely literary. Besides his intuitions and artistry there is the iron purpose of an ex-ranchhand who has earned his Ph.D. in history.”