He lives in a rooming house with two retired miners (Hoop and Griff) and a widowed landlady. His name is Morrie and he first works as a "cryer," someone who goes to wakes as a representative of a funeral home. While he does well as a cryer, it isn't exactly his life ambition, not to mention the real possibility of becoming an alcoholic. Morrie loves literature and he soon leaves to work at the public library for a curmudgeon named Mr. Sandison. He also meets a former pupil, now a teacher herself, who is engaged to a union organizer. He reluctantly becomes involved in union activities, has various adventures and eventually (but not particularly credibly, IMO) facilitates the creation of a "work song" that will help organize the miners into a more cohesive, committed and effective force against Anaconda.
There is flirting with his landlady, along with descriptions of Butte and the miners' lives; there are threads of a scrawny, neglected young boy named Russian Famine, of the library and Mr. Sandison's past and of shadowy "goons" always threatening Morrie.
It's not the most compelling novel I've read lately, but it does touch on a period of history in labor relations, specifically, those in Butte and it had the pace and gentleness of old-fashioned novels.
Just one excerpt at random: "These hardened miners had sifted into the library basement one by one or in pairs; several had brought their wives, weathered women in dark-dyed dresses usually worn to weddings, wakes and funerals. Life on the Hill was written in the creased faces staring up at me in my blue serge, and I needed to tap into whatever inspiration I could find, without delay."
(What I have wondered before is why Doig lives in Seattle and writes about Montana...but perhaps he DID live in Montana at one time. He certainly respects the English language and is fine writer.)
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