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Overview
In an extraordinary tale of love and forgiveness, Mark Spragg brings us this novel of a complex, prodigal homecoming. After escaping the last of a long string of abusive boyfriends, Jean Gilkyson and her ten-year-old daughter Griff have nowhere left to go. Nowhere except Ishawooa, Wyoming, where Jean's estranged father-in-law, Einar, still blames her for the death of his son. Though Einar isn’t glad to see either of them, Griff falls in love with his sprawling ranch and quiet way of life, as she slowly gets to know his crippled old friend Mitch, the cats that lurk in the barn at milking time, and finally the grandfather she had lost for so many years. An emotionally charged story of hard-won friendship and reconciliation, An Unfinished Life shows a novelist of extraordinary talents in the fullness of his powers.
Synopsis
Jean Gilkyson, pregnant when her husband was killed, is raising their daughter, Griff, in an Iowa trailer house with yet another brutal boyfriend, when she realizes this can’t go on. But the only refuge available is a town in Wyoming where her loved ones are dead and her father-in-law wishes she was too. ,
For a decade he has blamed her for his son’s death, choosing to go on living himself largely because his oldest friend otherwise couldn’t survive. Bound as close as brothers, they face old age on a faltering ranch, their interdependence even more acute after one was crippled and the other mauled by his own pain.
Suddenly Griff meets this grandfather she’d never heard about, not to mention a black cowboy confined to the bunkhouse, and irrepressibly claims her new life in hopes of turning grievous loss and recrimination toward reconciliation and love.
USA Today - Jackie Pray
An Unfinished Life has dysfunction and menace and clipped, big-sky dialogue that's as spare as Cormac McCarthy's work but with a warmer patina. The carefully paced story hides surprising flashes of humor inside telling detail.
Editorials
Jackie Pray
An Unfinished Life has dysfunction and menace and clipped, big-sky dialogue that's as spare as Cormac McCarthy's work but with a warmer patina. The carefully paced story hides surprising flashes of humor inside telling detail.— USA Today
Publishers Weekly
A sober reading by Amendola and Marx fits the slow pacing of Spragg's newest offering (following The Fruit of Stone), which uses spare, beautiful language to tell a tale of hardship, resentment and reconciliation in smalltown Wyoming. Both veteran narrators give strong performances, though Amendola does a better job than Marx in personifying the book's more idiosyncratic characters-such as the crippled cowboy, Mitch, or the spunky, nine-year-old Griff Gilkyson. A few aspects of the production seem out of sync, however. For one, the ominous music that introduces and concludes each disc is too heavy for the subject matter. It conveys a sense of impeding doom that would be more appropriate in a thriller or even a tale of imminent tragedy, rather than this ultimately hopeful story of tried but tender human relationships. The decision to use two readers also seems unnecessary, as the unpredictable shifts between narrators at chapter breaks shake the listener out of the story. Overall, the recording would have benefited from a simpler approach, but it still offers a stirring look at the importance of individual conflicts and emotions. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Forecasts, Aug. 9). (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.KLIATT
This novel has been called a modern Western, but it is far more than that. When Jean, a 30-year-old widow with a 10-year-old daughter, Grif, is once again forced to leave a battering boyfriend, they set out to the only place they can go after their money runs out and their car breaks down—back to her husband's father's ranch. Her father-in-law still believes that Jean was responsible for the car crash that killed his son, but he slowly warms to the granddaughter he didn't know he had. Grif, forever longing for a place to belong, finds solace in her quiet, reticent grandfather and his best friend Mitch, a black man he served with in the war and who now lies in pain after a brutal bear attack. Grif wheedles her way into their hearts and the story climaxes in a made-for-the-movies ending. Grif is the strong young girl character who seems to take care of her mother as much as her mother takes care of her, but the story is not sentimental or stereotypical. Some strong language and semi-graphic scenes make this unsuitable for the youngest middle schoolers, but high school students will appreciate this story. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2004, Random House, Vintage, 257p., Ages 15 to adult.—Nola Theiss