The Fruit of Stone

There's material here that you'll find in the author's "Where Rivers Change Direction" and in his film script for "Everything That Rises" -- a rancher father and son, a man whose parents died when he was young, an old wise bachelor cowboy, the Wyoming landscape, the turn of seasons, horses, ranch work, accidents and injuries. And as in both those other works, Spragg reveals his wonderful gift for revealing character through dialogue. The book is worth reading just for how people talk to each other in a wry, ironic, self-deprecating way. And the precision in his observations of human behavior and the outdoors is in top form.

Compared to the thoughtful, interior quality of Spragg's essays, which really get you inside the mind of the writer, the novel is more cinematic. It gives vivid images of surfaces, and the inner life and motivations of the characters have to be surmised from their behavior, which is often quirky, impulsive, and upredictable. A rancher's wife loses her mind and disappears, the rancher commits suicide, a woman believes she is accompanied by a dead sister, a park ranger is attacked and left unconscious in a culvert, a man enters a convenience store and aims a rifle at the cashier. These things happen with little explanation, and the central character seems to feel that none is needed. I also found myself wanting a more inward look to understand the two middle-aged friends at the center of the story, who happen to love the same woman.

Still and all, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in modern-day western literature and first-rate writing. When Spragg is at his best, he's right on the money -- a man with too much to drink roping road signs from the back of a truck, a woman dying of cancer, the step-by-step process of replacing a corner post in a corral fence, the heat and dust behind the chutes at a rodeo, a boy caring for a friend with a broken foot in a snowstorm. As a companion, readers of this book would be interested in Gretel Ehrlich's novel "Heart Mountain". Set during the 1940s, it involves a similar love-struck bachelor cowboy living alone on a Wyoming ranch.


A fine set piece, but...   January 9, 2003
 5 out of 8 found this review helpful

I'm a Wyo-phile, and I've lived there myself, so I have to cop to being as smitten with The West and The Idea of the West as the next person. And I like The Idea of The Fruit of Stone. But despite being a textbook (some might say "borderline cliche" instead of "textbook") example of the sincere western novel, The Fruit of Stone left me pretty cold.

The Fruit of Stone is a painstakingly crafted book. No doubt the author poured his heart into the writing. But the characters seemed dreadfully flat to me, especially the love interest. Maybe I'm over-sensitive to female characterization because I'm female, but she seemed like something of a non-event, like, WHY does he long for her so? We're neither shown nor convincingly told.

And her big confession at the end, um, not hugely credible. There'd be some blood loss issues visited upon her, methinks.

I'm not moved to bash this book, so instead, I'll say it's not the best choice for those of us who loved volatile, idiosyncratic, energetic books, like Close Range, Lonesome Dove, or The Solace of Open Spaces, where the writing of perfect sentences was forsaken in the name of a detectable pulse.

For some reason, when I read this book, I kept hearing James Taylor songs peeping through my head.

Adrenalin junkies, take heed and look elsewhere.


Takes me back to Wyoming   November 4, 2002
 0 out of 4 found this review helpful

Mark Spragg has written a wonderful book. I lived part of my chilhood in Wyoming and this novel takes me back there. With joy, despair, lonelyness and longing. He gave me back the light of a very mysterious and dramatic landscape. If you are interested in the West, especially if you are from the East or Europe I would strongly suggest you have a go with this book.