who is george sprott?

George Sprott is a masterful piece of storytelling. In essence it is an attempt to reconstruct the life of fictional small-town t.v. broadcaster, George Sprott. The creator, Seth, local comic book legend, wrote segments of GS for The New Yorker which was serialized. In the recent collection, these pieces are arranged and new sections have been added.

The story starts like a snowball, picking up pieces in interviews with George's acquaintances and narrations of his life at varying times. Each slice gives another sense of the life of George Sprott, but each seems to add more questions about his inner life rather than illuminating anything about him, categorically. The story itself says more about the flux of life and the ungraspable nature of the truth of a person, his or her value, than it says about George Sprott. It is also about tricksy narrative, the slippery nature of memory, and the unreliability of experience and opinion.

George Sprott is very sophisticated reading, satisfying in so many ways. Aesthetically it is gorgeous. Seth spent, seemingly, a huge amount of time crafting these cardboard models of George's 1950's city and he includes portraits of them in his book. The story is very moving and excellently paced. Reviews won't do it justice. George Sprott is required reading.

Mandy