"I got a copy of your Sandpit II about a year ago, and I like it very much. You've done a marvelous job of weaving together a vibrant body of lore and infusing it with your own life and personality. It has real historical value because of your courage and resourcefulness in getting to know the people and issues. I haven't read anything on the subject in recent years and that interested me more.

I am also very impressed with the book itself -- it's very well produced and edited. I don't know how you accomplished this, but I get the impression it was more or less on your own, which is extraordinary." David Raines Wallace, author of The Klamath Knot: Explorations of Myth & Evolution.

"In her second Sandspit notebook, Francesca Fryer continues to bring to life the historic Indian-White encounter on California s northcoast...Her creative task also became personal the well-known hero's journey. Meanwhile the author listened, digested, observed.....through interviews, tape-recordings and letters, along with (her) wide-flung net capturing pertinent historical data. Now confined to her bed, she uses a computer on a hospital table. These notebooks.....have become her song."
Louise Vernon, San Jose-based author and teacher

"I also knew Harry (Roberts) and.....came to realize...what a remarkable, special person he was and what a depth of knowledge and wisdom he possessed, though his manner on the surface often belied his perceptiveness and sensitivity.

I've just finished reading Book I.....and want to tell you what a beautiful, remarkable, profound book it is. The way in which you told the story, how you wove together the threads of all the lives and historical periods centered around that particular spot on this earth was very moving and insightful and imparted to me a real range and depth of experiences and of lives that I had no knowledge of before.....I never knew about the Spotts or Harry's mother Ruth or Florence Shaughnessy, or Alfred Kroeber's involvement with Robert Spott and the Yuroks. Nor was I aware of the depth and extent of Harry's training in Yurok ways.....

My sense of Harry as a unique and remarkable man was right all those years ago and your book has helped to reinforce that feeling for me.....with his Yurok understanding and knowledge giving him an historical connection to the Klamath River area far beyond anything a European transplant like me could begin to fathom." Gary Schmechel

"She listened." Joyce Sundberg, Yurok registered on the Trinidad Rancheria, producer of Native Voices: Indian Interest Program KHSU Arcata.

"As local Native Americans we feel the importance of this information about the Yurok Indians be told....Ms. Fryer (tells) about the world she has come to know...gives her experiences, also the many years of research that has continued throughout her life." Mr. and Mrs. Sam L. Jones and the Indian Action Council of Northwestern California

"The materials Fryer uses are fascinating in themselves. She has the majestic landscapes and colorful characters of an epic novel. The book is worth reading just to hear the voices of people like Florence Shaughnessy and Harry Roberts. Her unique approach offers intriguing new views" Sandspit documents a quest for truth....Fryer s work, however, is greater than the sum of her materials....By juxtaposing contemporary accounts.....with the pronouncements of Alfred Kroeber and Erik Erikson, she opens the way for new interpretations. Sandspit, then, is not really a history of a region and its people; it is a rediscovery."
P.J. Petersen, author

"I like this. It's about people." Audrey Jones

"Growing up in the Australian bush, I was engrossed by Bruce Chatwin's Songlines. Ms. Fryer s work has an added, more intimate.. .quality. It...honors all participants, White and Native American, and their personal histories... I am convinced her work will have wide appeal." Barbara Taylor, raised in the Australian bush, a counseling psychologist at UC Davis, now retired

"Sandspit is an epic story of the Yurok people. Francesca Fryer gives a voice to the living and those now silent, intoning a truth for this and all future generations." Finley Fryer

"It took years of research for Fryer to bring to light the historical fragments left in the original anecdotes and to record the voices of those Who still remember. History comes alive to the reader through the stories of this nation."
Anita Ford, Writer's Forum Newsletter

"You have interwoven a moving personal account, with an elaborate history, incisive criticism, and appropriate challenge of stereotypes.. .mostly without transitions for widely separated times past....It works!
Dorothy Sanem Levitt, editor and friend