An Unfinished Life

Nov 8, 2025 2:42 AM

Author:Mark Spragg,Tony Amendola,Judith Marx

An Unfinished Life

Jean Gilkyson is living in Iowa with yet another brutal boyfriend when she realizes this kind of life has got to stop, especially for the sake of her daughter, Griff. But the only place they can run to is Ishawooa, Wyoming, where her loved ones are dead and her father-in-law wishes she was too. For a decade, Einar Gilkyson has blamed her for the accident that took his son's life, and has chosen to go on living himself largely because his oldest friend couldn't otherwise survive. Bound together like brothers since the Korean War, their intimacy is even more acute since a bear horribly crippled Mitch. Griff knows none of this, but once she encounters this grandfather she'd never heard about, and the black cowboy confined to the bunkhouse, she attempts to turn grievous loss, wrath and recrimination towards reconciliation and love.

Reviews

Steel is one of the best!

—— Los Angeles Times

Enviably good

—— Louis de Bernières , Sunday Times

Thoughtful and beautifully observed... Never predictable, this novel combines a remarkable narrative force with the lightest of touches. A book to savour and pass on

—— The Economist

Utterly absorbing and enjoyable...a romance which moves with assurance from wild improbability to a reconciliation with things as they may truly be

—— Scotsman

Completely riveting and very funny indeed. Shakespeare at his empathetic best, as he mines the fragile seam of our desire to be loved for who we are

—— Sunday Telegraph

A tremendous and captivating writer

—— Independent

So full of surprises that even to start describing it you have to give a few away...compelling

—— Sunday Times

A novel of scintillating brilliance... a modern myth of good and evil... Gripping

—— Metro

A dissection of the emotional fissures that tear families apart

—— Mail on Sunday

The novel...is thoughtful and beautifully written, examining lost lives, chances and choices

—— Daily Mail

A sort of historical treatise follows, one that is devoid of the kind of colourful details which abound in stereotypical lottery daydreams, but which nevertheless endears the reader to Andy and his cause, and sets up an enticing conclusion'

—— Sunday Business Post

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