Where Rivers Change Direction

"Elemental, powerful?a piercing voice from the heartland."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Here is a book for women to read to learn the hearts of men. Here is a book for men to read to curse what they have lost?A fine example of blood-writing, every sentence alive."
--Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

"Stirring, evocative, finely nuanced, gritty-marvelous!"
--Gretel Ehrlich, author of The Solace of Open Spaces

It is a voice that echoes off canyon walls, springs from the rush of rivers, thunders from the hooves of horses. It belongs to award-winner Mark Spragg, and it's as passionate and umcompromising as the wilderness in which he was born: the largest block of unfenced wilderness in the lower forty-eight states. Where Rivers Change Direction is the story of a boyhood spent on the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming--with a family struggling against the elements and against themselves, and with the wry and wise cowboy who taught him life's most important lessons.

As the young Spragg undergoes the inexorable rites of passage that forge the heart and soul of man, this unforgettable memoir illuminates the heartfelt yearnings, the unexpected wisdom, and the irrevocable truths that follow in his wake...