Where Rivers Change Direction

When Mark Spragg was a boy of eleven he went to work for his father. His father owned the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming, on the high Yellow stone plateau, and he had over a hundred horses. Where Rivers Change Direction is Mark Spragg's remarkable memoir of growing up in this sublime and unforgiving landscape. In prose at once sturdy and very beautiful, he writes of his family, of his mentor John, a cowboy, and of the animals - both wild and domestic - that fill his life. An elk hunt that goes wrong; a winter spent alone on the snowbound ranch high in the mountains; the beauty and bravery of horses - Where Rivers Change Direction recreates the small but profound dramas of one boy's journey towards manhood. 'Elemental, powerful... A piercing voice from the heartland, this resonant autobiography weds the venerable western tradition of frontier exploration of self and nature with the masculine school of writing stretching from Hemingway to Mailer' Publishers Weekly