Ivan Doig’s last book, appropriately titled Last Bus to Wisdom, is an unpredictable
and boisterous road novel. It brought
back many memories of my childhood in western Kansas in the same era.
Donal Cameron is a 11-year old being raised by his
grandmother on a Montana Ranch in 1951. But when Gram has to have serious
surgery, she decides to ship him off to her sister Kate in Manitowoc, Wisconsin
for the summer.
On his way to Wisconsin, Donal first rides the Dog Bus, as
he calls the Greyhound, wearing his best rodeo shirt. Along the way, he engages
with everyone he sits next to, soliciting literary gems for his cherished autograph
book, which he carries everywhere. He has a $5 dollar bill in his pocket and
three $10 dollar bills pinned to the inside of his shirt, along with two
changes of clothes in a battered wicker suitcase.
During the ride, he lives on a steady diet of Mounds candy bars,
receives his first real kiss from a good-natured waitress named Letty, and
meets Harv, her boyfriend who is on his way back to jail, handcuffed and
accompanied by his stepbrother, a mean-spirited sheriff. Other fellow
travelers, who he easily interacts with, include young soldiers off to the
Korean War, some nuns, a group of obnoxious boys on their way to summer camp
who sang “great, green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts”, a song I haven’t
heard since I was a kid.
With his shock of red hair, freckles and gift of gab, Donal
carries an arrowhead for luck. But, he just escapes being robbed, and missed
his transfer in the Twin Cities. With luck from his Arrowhead, however, he was
transported by a good Samaritan who drove him to the next bus stop so he could
continue on to Wisconsin.
Upon arriving at Aunt Kate’s, he’s let down when he realizes
she is not the famous singer Kate Smith, his bedroom is in the attic, she feeds
him soggy cereal, and his main entertainment is playing canasta with his aunt’s
friends. She is a manipulative presence who abuses her ‘husband’ Herman and condemns
Donal to jigsaw puzzles for recreation. Shortly after arriving his loses his
pocket money and feels doomed to a summer of endless boredom.
But Donal hits it off with Uncle Herman, a one-eyed German,
who is hen-pecked by Kate. Herman routinely escapes to his greenhouse where he
reads novels of the old west. During World War II, Herman was an opponent of
Hitler, stowed away on a ship to the US, and lived for decades with Kate as an
undocumented alien.
After only a month into Donal’s stay, aunt Kate decides to
ship him back to Montana, and an uncertain fate awaits him. But as it turns out, Donal isn’t traveling
solo – Herman has decided to fly the coop, cashes his disability check and
joins him on the bus, heading for all manners of adventures. Donal asks him
where they will go, and Herman says “Anywhere’s." Just so it is “that away," pointing toward the West.
Wearing new cowboy hats they lope all over, getting into
scrapes in Yellowstone National Park, seeing pow-wows and rodeos, getting Jack
Kerouac’s signature in the autograph book, encountering swindlers, and evading
the law. But as posters start to appear announcing that Herman is an enemy
alien wanted by the FBI, the pair find themselves on the run.
After their money is stolen (again), Donal talks a doctor
into providing bus fare to Wisdom, Montana.
The story picks up steam in the final pages, where the
unlikely pair bunk with hobos arriving for the hay harvest. Soon, they are adopted into the itinerant
clan and obtain haying jobs.
Fortunately, their travails lead to a happy ending.
Doig does a superb job of
bringing this bygone era alive for the reader. His richly drawn
characters that move the story at a rollicking pace. I truly enjoyed this
memorable book.— Ken Johnson
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