Featured Book, Guest Post & Contest : Spoon by Robert Greer

Spoon by Robert Greer
Release Date : October 1, 2009

Description from Amazon :

“An enormously engaging novel with characters who feel like old friends and a spirit as big as the West. From the opening paragraphs, you are in the hands of a master with the ability to evoke the grandeur of the still untamed western landscape and the folks whose lives are shaped by it. What a gifted storyteller Robert Greer is! Spoon is the kind of story you will remember.”—Margaret Coel, author of The Silent Spirit.

His hat was a snow white Tom Mix block, and he wore it tipped forward just enough to shade his eyes. When I asked him what had happened to his shoes, he said, "Shoes can be excess baggage when a man's in a hurry."

A novel of the contemporary American West, Spoon tells the story of Arcus Witherspoon, a mysterious half-black, half-Indian, oddly clairvoyant man searching the West for his roots. Hitchhiking near Hardin, Montana, Spoon falls in with a ranching family struggling to keep their ranch afloat amidst the pressures of hard economic times and an encroaching coal company. Proving himself a gifted ranch hand and mentor, Spoon charges himself with rescuing the Darleys and guiding the family's teenage son TJ on his path to manhood. While Spoon's checkered past includes a prison stint and a navy tour of Vietnam, it is his tenacity, wisdom, and charm that end up defining this quintessential Western man.

About the Author

Robert Greer is author of the popular CJ Floyd mystery series: The Devil’s Hatband, The Devil’s Red Nickel, The Devil’s Backbone, Resurrecting Langston Blue, The Fourth Perspective, The Mongoose Deception, and Blackbird, Farewell, as well as two medical thrillers and a short-story collection entitled Isolation and Other Stories. He is a practicing pathologist and professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, and he owns a cattle ranch in Wyoming. Please visit his author website, http://www.robertgreerbooks.com/.

Guest Post

I’m typically a writer of suspense novels and mystery fiction. My latest novel, Spoon, therefore, proved to be a unique and very different writing challenge since it is largely a piece of literary fiction with a dominant western setting.

The novel’s plot revolves around a mysterious, oddly clairvoyant half-black, half-Indian cowboy named Arcus Witherspoon, aka Spoon, who is searching for his family roots out West. All he knows about his family is that his great-grandfather was a buffalo soldier who once fought alongside Kit Carson. As Spoon wanders the state of Montana he stumbles across a ranching family down on their luck. That family, the Darleys, are embroiled in a battle with a coal company intent on usurping their land. Spoon uses his tenacity, wit, and future-seeing powers to help the family deal with the coal company’s encroachment. At the same time, he helps their nineteen-year-old son, TJ, become a man.

The novel’s contemporary Montana backdrop essentially serves as a character itself as I explore the role of ranching in rapidly changing modern times.

Spoon, the novel, arose from a similarly titled short story I wrote when I was in my Boston University graduate creative writing program twenty-odd years ago. That story, published in a literary magazine, had characters and a plot that stuck with me over the years. There was something about the loner-drifter character of Spoon and his on-again, off-again attachment to larger society that I could never quite get out of my head. I suspect that’s because Spoon’s character shares some of the elements of the loner-gun fighter depicted in the classic Western novel Shane, a book I’ve always admired.

Spoon also gave me the opportunity to portray the hard-nosed western female character I am fond of: the bright–spirited, resilient woman of the high western plains. In Marva Darley, I got that chance.

All in all, Spoon was a refreshing break from the mysteries and thrillers that I normally write, and I suspect there’s another literary novel out there to be written soon.

Contest & Privacy Policy

Thanks to Erin @ Fulcrum Publishing, I am able to give away 5 copies of the title Spoon by Robert Greer.

To enter please fill out the form below, answering all required questions.

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If by chance you are under the age of 18, please have your parent or guardian email me at FallingOTShelf@aol.com to give acceptance of prize permission.

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Deadline November 10, 2009 @ end of the day everywhere.
U.S. & Canada Residents Only. No PO Boxes.

As soon as this contest is considered over, I will remove the following entrant form.