David James Duncan (born 1952) is an American novelist and essayist, best known for his two bestselling novels, The River Why (1983) and The Brothers K (1992). Both novels received the Pacific Northwest Booksellers award; The Brothers K was a New York Times Notable Book in 1992 and won a Best Books Award from the American Library Association. His third novel, Sun House, was released by Little, Brown and Company on August 8, 2023.
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. This stunning novel illuminates the contemporary American West through the prisms of Eastern wisdom and the unpredictable, expansive yearnings of the human heart.
David James Duncan is the author of the cult-classic novels The River Why and The Brothers K, the story collection River Teeth, the nonfiction collection and National Book Award finalist, My Story as Told by Water, and the best-selling God Laughs & Plays.
“Reading Sun House is like watching dawn in the high country. 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
Duncan inspires readers to look at all the shades of dark and light, depth and surface, beauty and ugliness, entering a broader consciousness and renegotiating the limited contract that is mortal life.”
David James Duncan with Maria Amparo Escandon, Peter Heller, and Anne Griffin (not shown) at the 2023 A Novel Idea event in Bend, Oregon. Watch David James Duncan and Steve Hawley on the GBH Forum Network discuss “Damned in a Hot Chaotic World.”
Beautifully written and wonderfully, humorously, deeply felt... Duncan is a scandal both to the institutional church and to secular snobs: a truly dangerous man.”
Talking about the ways a heart can be transformed by deep experiences of mystical transcendence, David shares the impetus behind the novel to impart an experiential model of contemplative inner life that could help us navigate our ecological unraveling.
And now, Sun House, David James Duncan’s long-anticipated novel, an epic tale heaving with heart and humor. Guided by Buddhist monks, Indian poets, Irish bards, and ‘Dumpster Catholic’ mystics, it wanders through Portland alleys, Seattle classrooms, Rocky Mountains, and …
Out on Rocky Mountain waterways, narrator David James Duncan and fly fishing legend Thomas McGuane reveal the magic of fishing with a fly rod made of grass and connecting with the order of rivers and flowing things.
Judges’ citation, 2001 National Book Awards: “Duncan’s reflections on rivers, salmon, the lands of the West and the earth itself spill off the page with wit, wisdom, and occasional fury. My Story as Told by Water is an education. Like fast water, the lively, trenchant prose pushes and spins, engages and agitates in the tradition of ...
