Mark Spragg Book order

At eighty, Einar Gilkyson has lost his share of loved ones, but still finds his house full. His granddaughter, Griff, has dropped out of college to look after him, and his long-absent sister has returned home from Chicago. But Ishawooa, Wyoming is far from bucolic, and troubles begin to boil when the sheriff finds a man murdered in a meth lab. In this gripping story from the author of An Unfinished Life, harsh truths and difficult consolation come alongside moments of hilarity, surprise and beauty.

Set in Wyoming, in cattle country, The Fruit of Stone is the story of two men and one woman. McEban, a rancher, has loved Gretchen Reilly all his life; and all his life Bennett, Gretchen's husband, has been his best friend. When Gretchen leaves Bennett, the two men follow her trail on a strange, fateful journey across Wyoming to Nebraska.

Jean Gilkyson is living in Iowa with yet another brutal boyfriend when she realises this kind of life has to stop, especially for her nine-year-old daughter, Griff. Einar Gilkyson blames Jean for the accident that took his son's life, and has chosen to go on living simply because without him his oldest friend, Mitch, wouldn't survive.

Mark Spragg grew up on the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming - a remote spread in the Shoshone National Forest. It is a sublime but unforgiving landscape, a place of unrelenting winds, pitiless blizzards, fierce rivers, and the men who work there have to be tough to survive. Spragg writes lyrically of this world, its animals - horses, bears, elk - and of its people, in particular his parents and John, an old cowboy who becomes the boy's mentor. This is a book about joy - Spragg's writing is miraculous; tough but beautiful, passionate and funny.