For you long time loyal Wild About Books followers, you may recall that my all time favorite author is western Montana resident David James Duncan. You may also recall that my number one and number two favorite books ever are his novels; “The Brothers K” and “The River Why”. If you have not read these I highly highly recommend them and thank you to my long time friend Deborah for introducing me to this author and his books.

After an evening of sharing at my “no book book club” my other long time friend Scyntiya started the audio version of “The Brothers K”. In the words of Scyntiya; “This book will cause me to never enjoy another novel; the writing is so exquisite. It’s like falling in love, the feeling will leave and you’ll never have it again”

Last month, after two decades, David James Duncan released his next novel. It took him 16 years to write. I’m a quarter through it and believe it is a master piece and will place my number one and number two favorite books of all time down one notch.

For the second time in my life I attended a David James Duncan event. He managed to fill the whole first level of the historic Wilma theater in downtown Missoula with his cult like followers and a few people who scored some free tickets at work or accompanied their mom (thanks Hannah) and had no idea the philosopher, poet, humanitarian, environment loving, talent that they had stumbled upon.

The event was an interview then a reading accompanied by a two musicians including a steel guitar player. With my new signed hard copy of “Sun House” in my lap, I listened to every word.

When I wrote my novel “Lucida Sans”; my goal was to write like David James Duncan. To dive deep into each character’s personality and let the characters tell the story. My novel and David James Duncan’s novels, in a nut shell, are the writer’s philosophies as told by fictional characters.

In his interview, Montana Public Radio’s Loren Korn asked about David James Duncan’s many characters and how they evolved throughout the book. David’s reply was that he tried to manage his characters and put words in their mouths, but they would not allow it and took on personalities of their own.

I so related to this comment. While writing my novel, I would walk into a coffee shop or brewery with my notebook and pencil not knowing what my characters would do until I walked back out. They wrote the story, I was just the transcriptionist for them.

I started his book that night of the event and realized this is not a night time book. I don’t want to read this as I’m winding down to sleep. “Sun House” is my morning book. It has taken the place of journaling and “The Sun” magazine. “Sun House” and a yerba matte morning. My alert and well rested novel. I’m reading it slowly, letting the words and characters be absorbed in my brain cells, my skin, my being. Every line is poetry. Every line is to be contemplated. A thought provoking book that is marked up by my underlining and exclamation marks. A book that I when I finish, I may flip back to page one and start over as even in my alert reading time, I know I’m still missing so much.

“Sun House is one of the greatest imaginative achievements I have encountered in a lifetime of reading.  Page after page brims with invention, mirth, knowledge, irreverence, and deep wisdom. I know of no one who better captures the beauty of the natural world or the ineffable experience of transcendence… David James Duncan transports the reader into a world more radiant and vivid than this one, or rather into a world just as radiant and vivid as this one, if only we attended to it with the heightened awareness his tale urges us to cultivate.” 

–William deBuys, author of The Trail to Kanjiroba: Rediscovering Earth in an Age of Loss

To be fair, my life philosophy and David James Duncan’s life philosophy are at the center of a Venn Diagram. We are, in the words of David James Duncan, “spiritual littermates”. I mean, he didn’t say that about me; it’s just a line in his book that I’ve stolen forever. You, blog follower, may not connect with his writing as I have. And, as I discovered in my book club, which recently evolved to the no book book club, this is to be expected.

Here is one of my underlined examples from the book.

…why I prefer high-mountain backpacking to skiing. In backpacking, the suffering endured as you climb sensitizes you to the gorgeousness when you arrive on high, and your elation lasts and lasts. In skiing, a mechanical lift crammed with party-hardies ratchets you to elevation in minutes, only to turn around and in seconds, undo all the elevation gain you didn’t suffer to achieve, so that way too soon you’re DOWN and the only cure for elation deflation is to get back in the party-hardy line, pay the piper, ratchety-ratchet back up, and bouncy-bounce down again, up, down, up, down, wanka, wanka, wanka.

There is no Lisa adventure to accompany this book recommendation. The book is the adventure. Nearly 800 pages of David James Duncan. I am in my happy place. Thank you David, I’d love to have you join my no book book club one evening in Darby, Montana.

I highly, highly, highly recommend David James Duncan’s newest novel “Sun House”. More fun book recommendations and adventures can be found at Wild About Books. I invite you to share and follow my blog.