Bucking the Sun, a novel by Ivan Doig (1939 – 2015) is an historical novel of depth that takes place in Montana during the Great Depression era, 1933 to 1938, with brief reflective sojourns to 1991.

The Duff family, father, mother and three adult sons lose their family’s alfalfa farm on the Montana bottomland to the impending Fort Peck Dam. It’s just as well—they were about to lose that year’s crop to grasshoppers anyway. Their oldest son, Owen, was hired as the dam’s fillmaster and was responsible for moving earth and rocks to create Roosevelt’s New Deal project, damming the Missouri River which was, up to that point, the biggest dam site in the world.

Eventually, all the Duff family is employed in the project, and the sons’ wives are employed in businesses associated with the dam’s construction in the thrown-together town of Glasgow and the adjacent community of Fort Peck. The project was huge in scope working year-round in weather extremes such as 61 below zero in February and 114 above zero in July.

As the author skillfully takes us through the engineering marvel of this massive project, we follow the Duff families as they play their various roles in the dam’s construction or its supporting occupations. Doig’s impeccable sense of timing is rich in detail. Each of the Duff men have their own distinct personalities, as do their wives, and as the story progresses, their individual talents emerge.

Much of Doig’s writing takes place in his home state of Montana. He wrote of rural working-class life, and this book captures not only the Montana terrain, but also its attitudes and toughness. I have read three previous books by Doig, all different in scope, and Bucking the Sun is yet another original captivating family drama mixing fact with fiction.