An Unfinished Life | 
| Author: Mark Spragg
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 231630
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 1400076145
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781400076147
ASIN: 1400076145
Publication Date: August 9, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Some wear on book from reading, spine creases, wear on binding and pages.
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Product Description
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.
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
 With Me Forever September 12, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
AN UNFINISHED LIFE sat on my bookshelf for three years. I'd see it there but choose something else to read. All the same, I always knew I'd want to read it. In time. The cover alone kept my interest.
I'd never read anything by Mark Spragg before though so for some reason, kept passing it over. Then, last week, its turn came and I started reading it. It grabbed ahold of me immediately. I was transported to Wyoming, a state I've only driven through but which appealed to me in its own unique way. I'd read and then have to make lunch or do the laundry but even when I was doing something else, I was thinking about Einer and Mitch, Griff and Jean, and their relationships with each other and with their pasts.
The book is marvelous and definitely made me want to get in the car and head west as soon as I could. Since I can't, I'll continue to visit in my mind and reflect in Mark Spragg's incredible painting of a place few of us even think about on a regular basis.
As a side note, the movie (Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman) is stunningly wonderful and if you've seen it, you'll certainly want to read the book since it is, of course, 100 times better.
Not Perfect But A Gem September 4, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
How can this be the first Amazon review posted on a book published in 2004? I don't understand. This is a little gem. "An Unfinished Life" is intricately woven tale of real people coming together. They support each other, they repel each other, they occasionally bond with each other. The setting, for the most part, is stark and small-town Wyoming. There are emotional and physical wounds galore and that might be my only gripe -- that nobody seemed whole, complete, and satisfied. Not even the wildlife. The Mitch and Einar relationship seemed particularly compelling as was the relationship between Jean Gilkyson and her spunky daughter Griff. But it's also very much about succumbing to the old, familiar rhythms of life or venturing out on your own, with all the risks that may come with such a move. If you liked "Where The Rivers Change Direction," also by Mark Spragg, you'll enjoy this.
great book September 9, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
i really really loved this book. it was excellent, easy to read and very satisfying. it was the first of his books i read but when i finished it i bought his other books.
 This story is sooooo played out. April 13, 2006
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
I'm reading this for our local book club and wondering who the heck thought that this would be a good read. Although the author writes well enough that you can visualize the scene with ease, there are some places where the plot appears to fall down. For example, when we are introduced to Einor one gets a feeling of cold winter approaching. Some chapters later, we find Jean mixing margaritas for a "cry in your drink session" with Nina in the backyard with feet cooling in a wading pool. Other characters such as Starla are downright strange. There is no real charactor development. Noone I could fall in love with. Unfortunately this story line was been played out over and over and this book does not offer any fresh prespective on the "woman done wrong" theme. But then again if you have a hankering for this type of story, it is an easy read.
Some Stereotypes, But It Works December 28, 2005
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Three of the main characters in this book are fairly stereotypical - Einar, the hard, wizened grandfather who lost a son, the precocious adolescent, the hated daughter-in-law. Added to this mix is the grandfather's best friend, a near cripple due to a bear-mauling, and the novel works well although at first blush you think you have seen them all before.
The daughter-in-law is battered by her boyfriend. Her daughter calls her on a promise that they would leave with the next beating and they do. With no where else to go, they end up at the grandfather's ranch. He did not know he had a granddaughter and she did not know she had a grandfather. The mother is hated by her father-in-law because she was driving when her husband, Einar's son, was killed in an accident.
As one might expect, the granddaughter melts the hearts of the two old men. The daughter-in-law begins to win some grudging respect, mostly due to the fact that she has a good daughter (if the child is good the parent can't be all bad).
So much of this book is predictable, you would think it would fall into the "already read that" category. However, Mr. Spragg's writing has a haunting quality to it. This makes the entire novel different and makes the characters almost seem ephemeral at times. They haunt and are the type of characters that will stay with a reader for a good long time - the mark of quality characterization.
This is a story of family and character renewal. The individauls renew themselves independently as well as members of the family. The precipatator is the child, yet she is very likeable. She is not the sappy sweet irritating child cast member. She is believable and has no supernatural insights or powers. Perhaps this is why the entire novel seems more believable than most of this type.
A good book that will stay with you.
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