The Fruit of Stone

Rating:
Summary: toooo bad
Review: I have read Mark spragg, his non-fiction, is a work of art. He should stick to non-fiction. This book is so bad and so unbelivable, there are no words to discribe. Save your money. Or read Where Rivers Change direction a truly magical book.

Rating:
Summary: A pleasure
Review: I was sent the uncorrected proof by the publisher and read the book out of curiosity. I finished it this morning, and will be re-reading it starting tonight...this time with a pencil to make notes in the gutter and margins. Spragg has written a wonderful novel. It had a hold of me from the first page and didn't want to let me go even after the last.

Rating:
Summary: Fine, rich novel defines contemporary Westerners
Review: In his 2nd book and first novel, Fruit of Stone, Mark Spragg continues to use his considerable skills to define the men, women and the landscape of the West with a narrative that takes the reader on an unusual quest filled with unexpected twists and rich returns. .

Spragg, a writer with a keen awareness of word sentence balance is also an extraordinary storyteller. The characters in this book are vividly, boldly, and yet tenderly drawn. They captivate the reader. Each character is well developed and clearly defined with the exception of the woman who motivates the central action of the novel, the quest; she is ephemeral, sylph-like, enigmatic, and thus fascinating. She lures, beckons and frustrates both the reader and the protagonist. Gretchen carries Milton in her book bag, but it is the poet John Keats' ballad "Belle Dame sans Merci" which best describes her. She is the beautiful woman without mercy.

In the current literary landscape littered with drugstore cowboys, Mark Spragg's, McEban stands out as the genuine article as we follow him and his best friend Bennett through the mountains and plains of Wyoming and Montana, back to Wyoming and into Nebraska, an illusive Gretchen ever alluring, ever beckoning,

In the loneliness of the harsh plains and the high mountains of Wyoming the ability to trust a friend can and often does determine the survival of an individual. Spragg's cleanly drawn protagonist, rancher McEban and his best friend Bennett enjoy such a relationship.

This is a fine, rich western novel. It would be a mistake to dismiss Mark Spragg as merely a regional writer. His characters speak for the West as William Faulkner's speak for the South.