'Clara and Merritt:' love and labor unrest in a long-ago Seattle

For those interested in the history of the Pacific Northwest, author Peter Donahue has an approach akin to that of E.L. Doctorow in meshing prominent historical figures into fictional narrative.

Donahue's 2005 novel "Madison House" chronicled the life and times of Seattle during the Denny Regrade.

In his latest book, Donahue once again uses the Northwest as his setting, but moves forward a few decades in time.

"Clara and Merritt" (Wordcraft of Oregon, 288 pp., $15) is a fictional love story embedded in a sprawling history lesson about Seattle in the 1930s and 1940s. The milieu includes violent power struggles between labor unions, the developing aesthetics of the Northwest School of artists, and the deprivations and uncertainties of World War II.

As a sailor stationed at Sand Point, Vermont-born Merritt Driscoll is taken aback by the "unrelenting drear" of the weather. The only bright spot he finds is in Clara Hamilton, the young hostess at the Christian Science Reading Room downtown.

But circumstances draw them apart — Merrill has a war to go off and fight in, and Clara has some challenges of her own to face. A nagging cough sometimes sends her to bed for days, and when she regains her health she pursues her ambitions as an artist — not easy for a female in that day and age — by taking classes at Cornish and eventually landing a position in the advertising department at Frederick & Nelson.

Despite her passion for the arts, Clara is not oblivious to the grittier details of life in her hometown. Her dad is a longshoreman and, before the war, her brothers were following in his footsteps. Agitating for the rights of dockworkers is a family tradition, and the Hamiltons are card-carrying members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).

This is no insignificant matter when Merritt returns to Seattle after the war, looks Clara up, and mentions that he has taken a job with the Teamsters. Indeed, the finer points of the ILWU-Teamsters rivalry are dished out along with the pot roast when Merritt is invited to dinner to meet Clara's family.

Donahue steeps this story in meticulous detail. Although based at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, he has pursued his fascination with the Pacific Northwest by coediting (with John Trombold) two anthologies ("Reading Seattle: The City in Prose" and "Reading Portland: The City in Prose") and by reviewing Northwest literature for "Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History."

Donahue knows Seattle inside and out. He sets scenes in the late lamented Dog House and in the Tea Room at Frederick & Nelson. There are visits to Shorey's Books, dances at the Camlin, games at Sick' Stadium.

There are encounters with real-life players in mid-20th century Seattle: painter Guy Anderson, for example, and union leaders Dave Beck and Harry Bridges. But it is the fictional characters that are utterly engaging — reticent Merritt, spirited Clara, her odd-couple parents, their singular friends.

The story, however, is the problem. Donahue garnishes his linear chronicle of boy meets girl/ loses girl/ gets her back again with a few flashbacks concerning labor-union strife in the 1930s, and with a blackmail subplot that feels tacked on. Given another scenario, the characters might have carried the day, but the leaden conclusion of "Clara and Merritt" may leave readers wondering what the point of the story was.