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'Tale' author puts audience at ease with colorful talk
By Ben Beagle
and Andrea Kimbriel
March 9, 2007
BATAVIA - A typical Thursday night finds Shanda Williams in a classroom
at Genesee Community College.
Last night was anything but typical. Williams and the rest of her class
gathered in the Reading Room at Richmond Memorial Library, 19 Ross St.,
to hear author Mark Spragg talk about life along the Rocky Mountains,
writing and his novel An Unfinished Life, this year's selection in the
"A Tale for Three Counties" community reading project.
"As he read I got a sense that he is the characters," Williams,
of Le Roy, said. "He read beautifully. It really made the connection
between him and the book."
Some 140 people filled the library's Reading room and an adjacent alcove
for Spragg's talk, the second of four he will make for the "Tale"
project.
The author, wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots and a black suede blazer
befitting a writer from Cody, Wyo., spoke for about 90 minutes, taking
questions from the audience for about half the evening.
At times, the program felt more like a very well attended book discussion
than an author's talk. Spragg's colorful, conversational tone and self-deprecating
style put audience members at ease as they asked follow up questions
or countered comments from other audience members. Laughter was frequent.
"The audience was very engaged. They didn't seem to want the questions
and answers to end," said Leslie DeLooze, the Richmond librarian
who started the "Tale" project five years ago.
"A Tale for Three Counties" has people in Genesee, Orleans
and Wyoming counties reading An Unfinished Life, discussing it and then
talking about it with the author during visits which continue through
Saturday.
Today, Spragg will have lunch with six winners of a book review contest
sponsored by The Daily News, and give another presentation at 7 tonight
at Lee-Whedon Memorial Library, 620 West Ave., Medina. His final visit
is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday in the Perry Elementary/Middle School
auditorium, 50 Olin Ave., Perry.
DeLooze was pleased with the turnout at Thursday's events - about 75
people attended an early afternoon program at GCC.
There was some concern as recent winter weather kept attendance low
at some book discussions and caused others to be canceled.
Those concerns were gone by the end of Spragg's Richmond talk when the
line for the book signing stretched across the front room of the library
and around the local history section to the back of the Reading Room.
"This was the first time I had participated, and I really enjoyed
it," said Dan Bowen of Batavia, another GCC student. "He was
a lot of fun. He has a good wit, is very learned. He's had an amazing
life and that made him really interesting."
At both programs, Spragg talked about the fondness he has for the characters
in An Unfinished Life.
His favorites are Mitch, whose strength of character helps him survive
a bear mauling, and Griff Gilkyson, the admirable little girl who "brings
hope of redemption to all the characters in the book."
Alternately, he acknowledges being repulsed by Roy, the abusive boyfriend
who prompts Jean Gilkyson and Griff to flee to fictional Ishawooa, Wyo.
They go seeking refuge on the ranch owned by Einar Gilkyson, the father-in-law
who blames Jean for his son's death a decade earlier.
Spragg said getting into the mind of Roy was especially hard. To help,
he'd take long walks on the prairie near his home and work himself into
a manic state of who he thought Roy was.
"I'd mutter and kick at rocks and complain about the world and
my situation in it," he said. "Then I'd dash out the first
draft from Roy's vulgar view of life before collapsing and having my
wife say for the rest of the evening 'It's OK, it's OK, you've just
been to a dark place."
Spragg talked about his background growing up among "deeply wondering"
cowboys on a dude ranch in Wyoming, his childhood desire to be a novelist,
and the book reports he would be assigned from his father's extensive
library, that featured some heavy-duty philosophers.
"I especially liked when he talked about his background as a child
and how much he read," said Rosemary Surowka of Batavia. "I
think that was big influence on his writing."
On trips to the library in Cody, Spragg and his younger brother were
allowed to take out as many books as they could carry. "And we
were strong little buggers," he said.
"When I open a book, I feel I'm sharing the soul of the person
who wrote the book," he said. And while his feelings may have changed
in early adulthood, as a man "strongly in his mid-50s," he
now thinks he had it right as a child.
Spragg recalled how An Unfinished Life developed - from the vision of
a man sitting on a porch, through hours long drives to visit friends
in which he and his wife discussed who the man was. That man became
Einar, named for a man Spragg knew from the ranch.
He noted that the title, An Unfinished Life, had been in mind from the
beginning. Likely influenced by his own fascination with existential
questions such as how people think about "the thin membrane between
the lives of which we are aware and the lives that we are not aware."
Many people at both programs were curious about how much of the book
came from Spragg's own life, and the film made by Lasse Hallstrom.
"Every writer puts some of their life's experiences into characters,
but most writers write what they dream," he said.
Spragg praised Hallstrom's collaborative nature and the work of Morgan
Freeman, who played Mitch. "I think he's the best actor of his
generation," Spragg said. "I could sit and listen to him b----
me out just to hear the cadence of his voice."
GCC student Jacquie Evans asked several questions about the differences
between the book and movie. "I love to read. I watched the DVD
at home. I like how the movie visuals gave faces to the characters,"
she said, "but the book was more vibrant."
Mio Kajiwara came to hear Spragg's talk at GCC on the recommendation
of a teacher. Kajiwara, a student from Japan, said reading the book
in class and hearing the author speak helped her develop her reading
skills.
Spragg ended his evening talk by giving readers a hint of his next novel.
While not revealing the story, he said readers could expect to see characters
from both An Unfinished Life and his earlier novel The Fruit of Stone,
completing a trilogy about Ishawooa.
Valerie Smith of Batavia has just started reading An Unfinished Life
and now, "can't wait to finish it and read the next one."
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Daily News Intern Andrea Kimbriel reported from Genesee Community College
Courtesy of Batavia Newspapers Corporation