Author Ivan Doig, who was known for his stories of the American West, died yesterday. He was 75 and had battled multiple myeloma for eight years.
Beginning with English Creek in 1984, he "wrote a number of novels set in fictional Two Medicine Country, Mont., based on the region where he came of age," the Los Angeles Times said. His other books included the memoir This House of Sky (1979), a finalist for the National Book Award, and Last Bus to Wisdom, which is scheduled to be published in August.
Doig won the Wallace Stegner Award in 2007, the Western Literature Association's lifetime Distinguished Achievement award and "is the recipient of more awards from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association than any other writer," as the Montana Standard put it.
"Ivan was one of the greats," said Riverhead publisher Geoff Kloske. "We have lost a friend, a beloved author, a national treasure."
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John E. Walsh, who worked with a team of editors on the Reader's Digest Bible to condense the massive text by 40%, died March 19, the New York Times reported, adding that Walsh also wrote more than two dozen books and "left nine completed manuscripts when he died."