Editorial Reviews
Product Description
"I knew the horses as I knew my family...When I was separated from them I felt wrong in the world. When I was separated from them I took no comfort in the sound of the creek. I felt chilled without the heat of them. In the short lulls between rides I leaned against the corrals, watching them roil like some captured pod of smallish whales, multi-colored, snorting at their handicapped buoyancy. When I stepped in among them, they would turn to me, roll their eyes until the whites showed, flick their ears. They were used to the sight and sound of me. I was the boy who straddled their hearts." If the West had a voice this is how it would sound. Passionate. Unequivocal. In the tradition of Ivan Doig's THIS HOUSE OF SKY, Mark Spragg's stunning collection, WHERE RIVERS CHANGE DIRECTION, renders an unforgettable story of an adolescence spent on the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming-a remote spread on the Shoshone National Forest, the largest block of unfenced wilderness in the lower forty-eight states. In this sublime and unforgiving landscape, Spragg's distant and mercurial father, his emotionally isolated but resilient mother, his fierce and devoted younger brother Rick, and his mentor, a wry and wise cowboy named John, cleave to one another and to the harsh life they have chosen. Unrelenting winds, pitiless blizzards, muscular rivers--from these elements Spragg divines the universal yearnings for self-reliance, trust, acceptance, and love. WHERE RIVERS CHANGE DIRECTION illuminates the unexpected wisdom and irrevocable truth embedded in the small, but profound dramas of one boy's journey toward manhood.
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