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Synopses & Reviews
An epic comedy about love, spirit, and the quest for transcendence in an anything-but-transcendent America, set amid the gorgeous landscapes of the American west: "A profound gift to readers" (Hank Lentfer) from the author of the perennial cult bestsellers The River Why and The Brothers K.
A random bolt from a DC-8 falls from the sky, killing a child and throwing the faith of a young Jesuit Jesuit into crisis. A boy's mother dies on his fifth birthday, sparking a lifetime of repressed anger that he unleashes once a year in reckless duels with the Fate, God, or Power who let the coincidence happen. A young woman on a run in Seattle experiences a shooting star moment that pierces her with a love that will eventually help heal the Jesuit, the angry young man, and innumerable others.
The journeys of this unintentional menagerie carry them to the healing lands of Montana and a newly founded community — where nothing tastes better than Maker's Mark mixed with glacier ice, and nothing seems less likely than the soul-filling delight a troupe of spiritual refugees, urban sophisticates, road-weary musicians, and local cowboys begin to find in each other's company.
With Sun House, David James Duncan continues exploring the American search for meaning and love that he began in his acclaimed novels The River Why and The Brothers K.
Review
"A book by a first-rate writer and one to be savored."
Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"Reading Sun House is like watching dawn in the high country. A clear, eastern light gains strength as the story unfolds, revealing a landscape as vast and gorgeous as any mountain range at daybreak. On this bright stage, David James Duncan's unlikely, perfectly-wrought, beloved characters perform a miracle: From ragged strands of tragedy and epiphany, they weave the fabric of a more openhearted world." Bryce Andrews, author of Holding Fire: A Reckoning with the American West
Review
"This is a classic epic novel with 21st century humor and timeless spirituality. I laughed so much and cried just as often. It's sexy, politically astute, visionary, and bold. I love this novel. I love David. Read it now." Sherman Alexie, author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Review
"Sun House is a book of healing that will earn a place on the shelf between the world's ancient wisdom texts and Mark Twain....Here is a book like nothing I have ever read, an epic story about how we may be made whole in a broken time." Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Earth's Wild Music
Review
"Like all truly extraordinary novels, the luminous Sun House is not a mere book, but a singular world in which the reader comes to reside, and to feel more alive. Told in rollicking prose laced with ab-tightening humor and high-lonesome lyricism, this immersive, sweeping tale locates the grand in the smallest particulars, and reaches its heights only after traversing the wild and sometimes steep country of the heart. To open the door to Duncan's long-awaited masterwork is to be flooded with light and loss, and to find, ultimately, hard-won hope." Chris Dombrowski, author of The River You Touch
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.