Salt Lake Library uninvites Mark Spragg

"You don't ask someone to dance, then say 'You're too unsightly,' when they stand up from the table."

That was Cody, Wyoming, novelist Mark Spragg talking about being invited – and then uninvited – to be the author featured in the Salt Lake County Library System’s "One County, One Book" program. According to a March 30 story in the Deseret News by Lucinda Dillon Kinkead, Mark was invited in January and was thrilled. But two weeks later, he got an e-mail he described as rather curt and "not particularly apologetic," saying the offer had been rescinded.
Library system employee Susan Hamada wrote that she'd been "directed to select an alternate title."

On the plus side, the library had already ordered 1,000 copies of the book. On the negative side, that may add up to a lot of returns to Mark’s publishers, Knopf (hardcover) and Vintage (paperback).

Writes Kinkead: "Spragg says — and sources close to the details privately confirm — there was scrutiny from library system officials about rough scenes in the book involving a character named Roy, who is a violent person, a batterer and uses obscene language. Spragg believes the decision about the book was reversed because someone complained about his Roy character's actions and language. "They made assumptions about the audience," Spragg said. "I don't think the Mormon population would find this book off-putting at all."

"An Unfinished Life" was released in 2004 to great reviews. Reviews for the 2006 film of the same name starring Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman were less friendly.

Meanwhile, Mark will be busy reading his work and discussing it in front of more welcoming audiences. Read On! Fort Collins presents an evening with Mark Spragg, its author for 2007, on Sunday, April 22, at 7 p.m. at the Lincoln Center in Fort Collins, Colo. Tickets are $5 and are available at the box office or at the door. It’s rumored that Mark’s pal and fellow novelist Kent Haruf will be joining him.

Obviously, Colorado’s much-maligned Greenies have much better taste in authors that our neighbors in The Kingdom of Deseret.