West Valley writer Frank Owen du Bois, author of “Getting Stronger at the Broken Places,” has devoted his income from this collection of short stories to Shepherd’s Hand, a free Whitefish clinic for those who can’t afford medical care.

He intends to donate half of worldwide royalties and then match those with a personal contribution.

“I’m structuring it this way strictly for the consumption of the IRS because this year I have to show a profit for my writing,” he said. “In effect, I’m donating all the royalties.”

Owen du Bois said he read about the $250,000 matching challenge issued by Whitefish philanthropists Dave and Sherry Lesar to help Shepherd’s Hand create a $1 million endowment by 2015.

With brisk sales of his book, he figured his royalties plus the Lesar match should help move the Shepherd’s Hand a little closer.

“It should be a nice shot in the arm for the clinic,” he said.

People interested in buying the book may purchase it on the Internet through Amazon or Barnes & Noble websites or www.outskirtspress.com/gettingstrongeratthebrokenplaces. The five-star-reviewed book sells as a paperback for $14.95 or as an e-book download for $5.

Owen du Bois wrote the stories over many years. His title story features a man who lost everything he loved and went looking for a place to die but was given a new life instead.

“The theme throughout is the power of the human spirit to overcome tragedy and adversity,” he said.

According to Owen du Bois, a profound personal loss and his healing inspired him to write that story. Much of his writing has autobiographical elements.

“There’s an interesting quote by Philip Roth,” Owen du Bois said. “He said, ‘I write fiction and I think it’s autobiography and I write autobiography and I call it fiction.”

Another theme in the book is people struggling with addictions as in “Cadillac Mack Is Dreaming Again.” It explores the struggles of a man with his identity so impaired by alcoholism that he doesn’t know if he is awake or asleep as relives his violent past every night over a cold Montana winter.

In these stories, Owen du Bois draws from his years working as a psychologist in a high-security military prison.

“I remember, even as a very young person, being struck by the extraordinarily high percentage of people who were in there — in that prison — because of drugs and alcohol and the bad decisions made while under the influence,” he said.

“Getting Stronger at the Broken Places” also has lighter stories such as “Mister and Missus Birdsong,” described as a tale of two delightfully off-kilter people who fall in love at a New Zealand hotel and find their craziness “adds up to a newly-discovered sanity.”

Owen du Bois, who places his age as  in his 70th orbit around the sun, has lived a varied and adventurous life that started with growing up in Billings, Choteau and Great Falls. His father was an Episcopal priest and his mother was a nurse.

Educated as a clinical psychologist, he served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. When he was discharged in 1969, Owen du Bois took post-graduate work at the University of Montana, then hired on at the railroad and transferred to Whitefish in 1970.

“It was kind of a tender trap,” he said. “I stayed with them for 23 years.”

In 1993, he emigrated to New Zealand where he had a “little boutique tourist lodge” for about five years, then bought and ran a wholesale food manufacturing company for about five years.

After suffering a heart attack the day after 9/11 and then going through a divorce, he decided to leave New Zealand. Owen du Bois sold his home and business and enjoyed “endless summers” with six months in Montana and six months in the South Pacific.

He settled down here for good in 2003, where he soon received a wake-up call about the cost of health care.To monitor his heart health, the author followed his Whitefish physician Dr. Jay Erickson’s advice to have several tests.

When the bill came, he suffered an attack of sticker shock — he had no health insurance. Under New Zealand National Health Care, he had spent a week in intensive care and wasn’t charged a dime.

“The same thing in America would have cost me over $100,000,” Owen du Bois said. “I was astonished and outraged at the thousands of dollars I was charged for the tests and told Jay how obscene I thought it was.”

To his surprise, Erickson agreed with him. It was only later that he learned about Erickson’s work providing free medical care through the Shepherd’s Hand clinic.

“He never said a word to me about it,” Owen du Bois said. “I thought that was really one of the most deserving charities that I could see on my horizon right now.”

The writer and his life partner have a long history of mostly anonymous philanthropy in the valley as well as raising money for many organizations. People may remember him as the founder of the Glacier Symphony Orchestra and its sole financial patron for the first year.

Owen du Bois now lives in West Valley where he focuses on writing short stories and finishing his first novel. He also enjoys renovating his home and continuing to “dabble in business.”

“I seem to be busier now that I’ve retired,” he said with a laugh.

A writer since he was a child, Owen du Bois has had stories recognized in a number of literary contests including the Laura Bower Van Nuys Short Story Contest and the highly competitive Reader’s Digest national writing contest. His work has appeared in Sabine, The MacGuffin, Yin Yang Magazine, Glacier Literary Review and others.

 Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.