Western Annotation

Western Annotation: Last Bus to Wisdom

Author: Ivan Doig

Title: Last Bus to Wisdom

Genre: Western (historical fiction)

Publication Date: 2015

Publisher: Riverhead Books (New York)

Number of Pages: 453 pages

Geographic Setting: Montana, Wisconsin

Time Period: 1951

Series (if applicable): None

Plot Summary:  Eleven year old Donal heads to Wisconsin to stay with his Great Aunt Kate and Uncle Herman while his grandmother undergoes an operation for the summer.  But while there, he finds his bossy and argumentative Aunt is too much for him, so when she decides to send him to an orphanage back in Montana, he boards a Greyhound bus, along with Uncle Herman (unbeknownst to Kate) and the two of them set off for the adventure of a lifetime.

Subject Headings: Travelers, West, Indians

Appeal: For those who enjoy a good western tale about adventure and family.  For ages 14 and up due to some foul languages.

3 Terms that describe book: Adventurous, coming-of-age, long.

Similar Works and Authors:

The Hour of Lead – Bruce Holbert: A tale of a young man named Matt who is left to take care of the ranch after his brother and father die and his mother walks out and has to learn life’s hardest lessons on his own.

Beyond the Horizon – Ryan Ireland: A story about a man’s pursuit to find the man who murdered his pregnant friend and her unborn child.

Honey for the Lion – Matthew Neil Null: A tale about a man’s new home where he is put to the test of where his loyalty stands in the midst of a union strike.

Personal Thoughts: “In traditional Westerns we expect cowboys, cattle drives, gunslingers, adventure, and gunplay … However, creating a strong a sense of time and place, the feel of the Old West is essential.  Westerns speak to basic, deep-seated feelings about the land and the men who brought justice to the wild, uninhabited country and thus helped make it safe for those who civilized it” (Saricks, 2009, 313). 

Cowboys, gunshots, and adventure is what I would expect in a Western novel, since I am not so knowledgeable in this genre, but Last Bus to Wisdom left me with a good sense of what a Western novel is like.  In this book, there are cowboys, talk of the West and Indians, but the biggest thing I found is how the main character, Donal, comes to realize what people are like and how the West is filled with adventure and room to grow personally in the process, as well as finding where you belong. 

“It sank in on me.  No one in the entire world know that the two of us were free as the breeze.  Herman wasn’t merely flapping his lips; we really were footloose, crazily like the comic strip characters in Just Trampin’ who were always going on the lam, hopping on freight trains or bumming rides from tough truck drivers to stay a jump ahead of the sheriff.  Or at least bus-loose – the fleet of Greyhounds ran anywhere we wanted to go.  It was a dizzying prospect.  Goodbye battle-ax wife, for him, and no Hello, orphanage, for me – it was as simple as sitting tight in a bus seat to somewhere known only to us, the Greyhound itself on the lam from all we were leaving behind” (Doig, 2015, 228-9).

I really enjoyed reading this book, but I would have to say my favorite moments are when Donal asks people who interest him to sign his autograph book.  My favorite can be found on page 38.  If you want to know what it says, you will just have to read it for yourself and find out.

References:

Saricks, J.  (2009).  The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction.  2nd Ed.  Chicago: American Library Association.

Doig, I.  (2015).  Last Bus to Wisdom.  New York: Riverhead Books.