An Unfinished Life - Softcover

Mark Spragg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099472198 ISBN 13: 9780099472193

Publisher: Vintage Books, 2006

Synopsis

Jean Gilkyson is living in Iowa with yet another brutal boyfriend, when she realizes this kind of life has got to stop, especially for the sake of her daughter, Griff. But the only place they can run to is Ishawooa, Wyoming, where her loved ones are dead, and her father-in-law wishes she was too. For a decade, Einar Gilkyson has blamed her for the accident that took his son's life, and has chosen to go on living himself largely because his oldest friend couldn't otherwise survive. Bound together like brothers since the Korean War, their intimacy is even more acute since a bear horribly crippled Mitch. Griff knows none of this, but once she encounters this grandfather she'd never heard about, and the black cowboy confined to the bunkhouse, she attempts to turn grievous loss, wrath and recrimination towards reconciliation and love.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

“One of the truest and most original new voices in American letters,” as Kent Haruf has written, Mark Spragg now tells the story of a complex, prodigal homecoming.

Jean Gilkyson is floundering in a trailer house in Iowa with yet another brutal boyfriend when she realizes this kind of life has got to stop, especially for the sake of her daughter, Griff. But the only place they can run to is Ishawooa, Wyoming, where Jean’s loved ones are dead and her father-in-law, the only person who could take them in, wishes that she was too. For a decade, Einar Gilkyson has blamed her for the accident that took his son’s life, and he has chosen to go on living himself largely because his oldest friend couldn’t otherwise survive. They’ve been bound together like brothers since the Korean War and now face old age on a faltering ranch, their intimacy even more acute after Mitch was horribly crippled while Einar helplessly watched.

Of course, ten-year-old Griff knows none of this–only that her father is dead and her mother has bad taste in men. But once she encounters this grandfather she’d never heard about, and the black cowboy confined to the bunkhouse, with irrepressible courage and great spunk she attempts to turn grievous loss, wrath, and recrimination–to which she’s naturally the most vulnerable–toward reconciliation and love.

Immediately compelling and constantly surprising, rich in character, landscape, and compassion, An Unfinished Life shows a novelist of extraordinary talents in the fullness of his powers.

About the Author

Mark Spragg is the author of Where Rivers Change Direction, a memoir that won the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, and The Fruit of Stone, a novel. He lives in Cody, Wyoming.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0099472198
• ISBN 13: 9780099472193
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272