Ivan Doig’s third book in his “Montana Trilogy Series” - Ride with Me, Mariah Montana, offers yet another glimpse of Doig’s immense skill in turning a phrase. 

Set now in the year 1989, Montana’s statehood centennial, the central character is once again Jick McCaskill, who is now 65 and struggling with his wife’s recent death, and what to do with the family ranch in the Two Medicine Country.

The theme of the story is Jick’s travels to the far corners of Montana in his Winnebago, accompanied by his fiesty daughter Mariah (photographer for the Missoulian) and her ex-husband, reporter and columnist Riley Wright.    The newspaper pair have been dispatched by the Missoulian to capture stories on the real Montana, which is quite realistically and eloquently described in Doig’s hardscrabble way.

Woven into the ‘Bago tour of rural Montana, which makes you think you could put the book down and look out through the window of the motorhome yourself, are several heartfelt challenges that Jick and Mariah face as their travels trigger waves of memories from the past.

An astoundingly accurate look at aspects of life in Montana even today, Ride With Me, Mariah Montana, deserves a place in your Montana library, and closes Doig’s Montana trilogy in a masterful way. 

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