FARMINGTON – Joe Poirier attributes an imagination that brings stories to life in his head as the basis for his writing.

It has taken the 76-year-old Stratton man 40 years to complete his first novel, “Search: The Western Saga,” written under the pen name Cappy Perry. He hopes it will be a four-part series.

The book is co-authored by his daughter Zee Davenport and his wife, Lee Von. It is the basis for a movie script.

The western genre was a natural for the Maine author who spent 25 years working at the Old Tucson Studio in Tucson, Ariz., where the television series “Bonanza” and “High Chaparral” were filmed, as well as western movies.

Poirier worked as an extra on some shows and took care of horses, including the two pintos used by actor Michael Landon, who played Little Joe Cartwright on “Bonanza,” he said.

He got the job after he couldn’t find work when he returned to Madison from the Army. Learning that Old Tucson was hiring, he made his way West searching for a better life, just as the main character of his novel does. Around the studio, he was labeled the Maineiac cowboy after he placed snowshoes on his horse before ascending the mountainous terrain of Flagstaff to reach a movie scene, he said.

“One day the studio was shooting westerns … the next day it was ‘Baywatch,'” he said. He went on to work as an electrician.

But the lure of writing kept calling from his young years in Maine sitting on a special rock in Norridgewock and letting his imagination run.

“I’m always thinking and writing … I love to write,” he added.

Using his own style in the first-person, Poirier begins his western love story in a setting from 1865-1890. It tells of an immigrant from France who comes to the states searching for a better life for his family. Once he arrives, he becomes embroiled in the Civil War and eventually makes his way West to encounter the trials of western life and the promises of gold.

The book was published last year by Trafford Publishing in Canada and has 36 chapters, he said. He starts the second book, “Reunion,” which finds the character reunited with his French family, with chapter 37 so people will have to read the first one, he chuckled.

While Poirier says “Search” is selling well in the West and in other countries, he admits it’s “not easy to get a book off the ground. I’ve always said I’ll be a millionaire two days after I die.”

The book is available online and locally at Wilton Printed Products.