The Arts

The prolific writer Ivan Doig has set many of his large shelf of novels in rural Montana, where he was raised. He has gained a strong national readership for such touted reads as "English Creek," "The Whistling Season" and, recently, "Work Song."

A Chicago Tribune critic termed Doig a "grand storyteller" who explores "the American West with humor and pathos."

Much more praise has been heaped on Doig, along with a prestigious Wallace Stegner Award from the University of Colorado. But one pleasure the 72-year-old Shoreline resident has been denied is seeing any of his atmospheric novels dramatized — on film, TV or on stage.

"I've had enough wannabe movie approaches through the years," he noted wryly, in a recent chat. "And the rights to my book 'The Sea Runners' were bought many years ago, but there's been no movie on the horizon."

The dry spell is now breaking: Book-It Repertory Theatre's staging of Doig's book "Prairie Nocturne" debuts at Center House Theatre on Friday. And the author is delighted about it.

"Prairie Nocturne" is one of several popular novels by local writers Book-It is tackling. Last fall, the company unveiled a satisfying version of Olympia author Jim Lynch's "Border Songs." And the lit-focused ensemble will end its 2011-12 season with "The Art of Racing in the Rain," based on a best-seller by Seattle scribe Garth Stein.

"I think the Book-It people deserve to be praised to the skies for putting on the work of the regional artistic community," declared Doig. "When they asked permission to do my book, I had no reservations at all."

"Prairie Nocturne" does present some obvious challenges for those condensing the sprawling tale into an evening's drama.

The hefty novel is set in the 1920s, and ranges between Helena, Mont., and environs, and the Manhattan enclave of Harlem.

The plot layers a romantic triangle and mentor-protégé relationships with politics, racism and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the Great Plains region.

Two central figures, the rancher Wes Williams and his ex-mistress Susan Duff, were introduced in earlier Doig novels. The third point on the triangle is Monty Rathbun, a black chauffeur whom music teacher Susan coaches, with Wes' financial backing.

Inspiration for Monty was Taylor Gordon, whom Doig recalls as the only black man in the vicinity of his hometown of White Sulphur Springs, Mont.

In this outpost "where the Rocky Mountains collide with the plains," Doig tells you, Gordon was a gifted singer "who went to New York, blazed through the Harlem Renaissance and got a little famous, then blew his money and wound up back in Montana."

In 1971, shortly before Gordon died, Doig taped his reminiscences of Harlem in the 1920s. "Later I got to thinking, what if Taylor's career hadn't crashed?"

Doig, who holds a doctorate in history from the University of Washington, delved deeper into historical research of the Harlem Renaissance, a period when African-American musicians, artists and writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston came to the fore, and flourished.

He also investigated a more esoteric subject, "the second, northern wave of the Ku Klux Klan, an important part of 20th-century history that hasn't had much recognition, and couldn't be ignored. It seemed to me an important tale to tell, that in that time and place there was some terrible racial division."

Combing archives and museums, Doig "found Klan membership cards for some chapters in Montana. I even recognized the name of someone I knew."

Black Westerners like Monty had obvious reason to fear violence from the white- supremacist Klan, but Doig wanted to explore the dilemmas of all three of his protagonists.

"They are all wagering major gambles," he says. "Wes gambled earlier in his affair with Susan, which cost him politically, and he gambles by promoting Monty's career and taking on the Klan.

"Susan gambles by taking on this unlikely student, and following where her heart leads her. And Monty's gamble is maybe the greatest of all, challenging his so-called place in society and on the racial ladder."

The Book-It piece is scripted by local playwright Elena Hartwell, and staged by Laura Ferri. Doig gave them free rein but gladly accepted the theater's invite to the actors' first reading of the play.

The theatrical process fascinated him. "It's very interesting for someone who sits around by himself in his head all the time," he muses, "and here are 30 or so people around a table.

"I didn't realize what stagecraft was like, all the people involved. It was a lot of fun to hear my words, and to see the population of my imagination start to come to life as the actors read."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com