Description
Description
About the Author
About the Author
David James Duncan is the author of the novels The River Why and The Brothers K, the story collection River Teeth, and the nonfiction collections My Story as Told by Water (a National Book Award finalist), and God Laughs & Plays. His work has won three Pacific Northwest Booksellers Awards, two Pushcart Prizes, a Lannan Fellowship, the Western States Book Award, inclusion in Best American Sports Writing, Best American Catholic Writing, two volumes of Best American Essays, five volumes of Best American Spiritual Writing, an honorary doctorate from University of Portland, the American Library Association's 2004 Award for the Preservation of Intellectual Freedom (with co-author Wendell Berry), and other honors. David lives on a charming little trout stream in Missoula, Montana, in accord with his late friend Jim Harrison's advice to finish his life disguised as a creek.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
"Jim Harrison meets Robert M. Pirsig, Timothy Leary, and the Dalai Lama in Duncan's long-awaited follow-up to The River Why (1983) and The Brothers K (1992)...arch and bookish (Gary Snyder makes a cameo appearance), [Sun House] will prove captivating to those who enjoy novels of ideas--in this case, one that modernizes the Western by injecting it with ethnic diversity and doses of philosophy (and LSD, even)...a book by a first-rate writer and one to be savored."
--Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW "Sun House is a cathedral, a high-domed room of stories the reader enters and never fully leaves...a profound gift to readers (like me) who hunger for the insights of ancient texts but lack the appetite to read them on my own."--HANK LENTFER, author of Raven's Witness and Faith of Cranes "Set within a hauntingly beautiful landscape, Sun House presents a rare version of the American West, one teeming with mysticism, yearning, and compassion."--Alta "Asian wisdom traditions and an Emersonian reverence for what can be learned from nature have always suffused Duncan's work, but in Sun House they are front and center on nearly every page."--John Williams, The Washington Post "The time, energy, focus, precision, invention, scholarship, fun, joy, love, courage and compassion that went into making this novel boggle my mind...Just contemplating its creation is something of a spiritual journey in itself. Finding this kind of expansive refreshment at this most narrow-minded moment in history is a gift."--RICHARD POWERS for The Washington Post "[Sun House] feels both capacious and tightly packed, as musical and shimmering as its title suggests. It is the product of long workdays, seismic struggles both personal and global -- and a level of compassion and spirituality that transcends all of it."--Maggie Neal Doherty, Los Angeles Times "Duncan's sprawling new novel blends frustration with the divine, strange moments of random chance and the search for community. It's an epic read to tackle as the summer starts to wind down."--Tobias Carroll, Inside Hook "Sun House is a voluminous chronicle of a specific time in American history . . . As is the trademark of his fiction, Duncan's spotlight shines brightest on the in-betweens and exceptions in religious tradition, the cracks."--Jessie van Eerden, Commonweal Magazine "[Sun House is] a cosmic trip that braids together a dozen lives that cross and gurgle like the fictional Elkmoon River."--Outside, Best Books of Fall "[Sun House] takes as many turns as Missoula's Rattlesnake Creek, all the while celebrating the extraordinary power of community."--Debra Magpie Earling, The New York Times "Reading [Sun House] is to fall in love with its myriad characters as they move through their own versions of walking a spiritual path. It's a rare novel that can hold up under the sheer weight of so many fully drawn and endlessly fascinating characters. Sun House doesn't just hold the weight, it floats and even soars with it."--Marc Beaudin, Big Sky Journal "[Sun House] is what might colloquially be called a yarn. Like the best-told folk tales in every culture, the story is an adventure, a comedy and what could be called a teaching moment. Indeed, a moment we can all learn from."--Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch "Sun House quickly envelopes readers in language that offers up new ways of thinking. There's an honorable gentleness in the characters that engenders a longing to understand our fellow humans...The novel creates an immersive experience with its thin, Bible-like pages and various font treatments that indicate journal entries and dream sequences, different tones of voice, and winding narration, which makes reading feel akin to following a snaking river."--Anna Paige, MONTANA FREE PRESS
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
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