This is not the kind of email any author wants to land in his or her inbox. Just two weeks after he was notified in January that his 2004 novel AN UNFINISHED LIFE had been selected by Salt Lake County (Utah) Library Services for its “One County, One Book” reading program, author Mark Spragg received an e-mail from the library informing him that the book’s selection and the library’s invitation to speak at an October event had been rescinded, reports the Deseret News.
Jim Cooper, director of county libraries, first said a county staffer “jumped the gun” on informing Spragg his novel had been selected. Cooper later conceded he’d overridden a decision by an “informal” committee that chose the book. “I decided that another book would be more appropriate for our audience and for the time,” Cooper said. “It’s not a censorship issue.”
But 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. One bookseller with contacts in the publishing business said a New York literary agent told her Salt Lake City is the “laughing stock” of the publishing world. Spragg himself called the situation “utterly regrettable.”