Bone Fire

By Mark Spragg

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307474356
• ISBN13: 9780307474353
• Release Date: April 2011
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

To Kill a Mocking Bird might be me all time favorite

I gave this book a good, solid chance but I kept feeling like I was being read to by Phil Donahue. The author always seems to be explaining where we are but nothing seems to happen.

Another literary gem from Mark Spragg

There are many ways to enjoy Bone Fire: For new readers of Spragg's work, this is a lovely introduction to his rich prose and deeply drawn characters within a plot that runs as quickly as a spring brook. I envy the new reader meeting Einer, McEban, Griff, Jean and Paul for the first time within this story full of Spragg's crystal clear imagery of the modern western landscape. Enjoy! For myself and the many other fans of Spargg's books, (Where Rivers Change Direction, The Fruit of Stone, and An Unfinished Life,) we can settle in and be entranced by this new chapter of characters grown dear to us, and painted in full color with Spragg's lyrical writing. I can get lost in the prose like a spiritual acolyte having their first moment of Being - I just want to linger within the moment of the language, possibly forever. But the intriguing plot begs me to turn page after page to travel with these beautiful, damaged, perfect characters once more. Bone Fire has inspired me to re-read Spragg's other books once again as first chapters to this current story - yet a third way to enjoy the book. I feel fortunate to have them all in my library, and look forward to future books whether we follow these characters or new ones. I highly recommend them all.

well written modern day drama of life in small-town Wyoming

In Ishawooa, Wyoming Sheriff Crane Carlson finds the corpse of a teen amidst the wreckage of a meth lab at a time the stoic cowboy has personal issues. He has just learned what he expected about his failing health and wants to reconnect with his first wife who has remarried; not withstanding that Crane is married too. His current spouse Jean is a nasty vulnerable drunken pothead outraged that her husband is reaching out to her predecessor and not her. Her daughter Griff the sculptor dropped out of her eastern college to return to Wyoming to care for her ailing octogenarian grandfather Einar Gilkyson. He loves her especially her devotion, but wants her to live her life as her health care graduate student boyfriend Paul heads to Uganda with or without her. Instead Einar asks his estranged lesbian sister Marin whose long time love just died to come to the ranch to take acre of him as he is dying. Paul's nephew ten years old Kenneth was abandoned by his New Age mom. However, rancher Barnum McEban raises the lad with tender love. This is a well written modern day western drama of life in a small Wyoming town. Griff is the hub of the tale as the ensemble cast is a sort of no more than two degrees from her. The characters are too stereotyped, but they come together in stark environs as life seemingly tosses no hitters at them. Yet with all the desolateness of reality, Griff shines with a powerful caring energy while using the bone remains of animals as the objects of her art; metaphysically displaying life as a Phoenix arising from the Bone Fire of the dead. Harriet Klausner