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The Brothers K

4.42 of 5 stars 4.42 · rating details · 6,278 ratings · 1,015 reviews

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

Once in a great while a writer comes along who can truly capture the drama and passion of the life of a family. David James Duncan, author of the novel The River Why and the collection River Teeth, is just such a writer. And in The Brothers K he tells a story both striking and in its originality and poignant in its universality.

This touchin...more

Paperback, 645 pages

Published June 1st 1996 by Dial Press Trade Paperback (first published 1992)

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Apr 25, 2013 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Those Needing to Learn to Live in Harmony With Others

Recommended to Steve aka Sckenda by: Gloria

Shelves: pacific-northwest, washington-state, religion, family, mystery, vocation, compassion, vietnam, fundamentalism, father-and-sons, fathers-and-sons, favorites, favorites-contemporary, mother-issues, india, love, community

“I won’t tolerate you teasing him…or trying to educate him into sharing your beliefs. You boys are four different animals, and the older you get, the more unalike you’ll get. So I want you to start respecting your differences here and now.” --Papa to the Brothers K (179)

Sometimes a book incites me to fight for truth. David James Duncan teaches me that the deepest truth is to love and to respect others who think differently. There is a time for everything under the sun. And, with my apologies to...more

52 likes · like · see review

Jan 31, 2008 Summer rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: lovers.

Shelves: the-special-shelf-by-my-bed

Okay. I have spent a lot of time trying to formulate a persuasive review for this book.

I could tell you this: that everyone I've ever recommended it to who has read it has really, really loved it. Many of them have bought extra copies for people they want to recommend it to. Many of them have given this book to their parents, their brothers, and their best friends.

I could tell you this: that it is each of my parents' favorite novel as well, and that one of my most deeply imprinted memories of t...more

49 likes · like · see review

Apr 25, 2013 Dolors rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone in need of inspiration

Recommended to Dolors by: Steve aka Sckenda

Shelves: read-in-2013, best-ever

It may be different for other people, but we in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first.
Ivan to Alyosha Karamazov

Let's get clear, The Brothers K struck me out.
There are books which tell a story and then there are others, like The Brothers K, whose story resonates deep inside you in response to a call within the remotest nook of your inner being. Either as an iron hand clutching relentlessly at your bowels or as a scorching eruption of pure and unadulterated love, the novel...more

24 likes · like · see review

Jun 08, 2007 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone who values incredible writing

I've read this novel twice, and it only *just* got edged out by The Corrections as my favorite book of all time. Like Franzen's novel, this is one of those mystical "crossover" books -- great fun for both boy and girl readers. But while Franzen's writing is crystalline in quality and psycho-putrid in tone, Duncan's novel is, yes, a masterpiece, both in its style and in its ability to convey emotionally such a wide range of family successes and disappointments. It's some of the most inventive, ar...more

14 likes · like · see review

Ak I feel exactly the same! It kept reminding me of The Corrections, to which I'm trying to cling fondly as My Favorite Book Ever... but I daresay Brothe...more
Jun 05, 2010 12:13pm

Guy Lovely review of one of the best novels ever written. I've read this novel six times, including once out loud to my wife. I believe that reading this...more
Oct 23, 2010 05:46pm

Mary you made me read "The Corrections". How can you even compare a family loaded with love to one loaded with mean back-biting characters that can't put f...more
Aug 20, 2012 04:07pm

Oct 12, 2007 Devin Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters.

Shelves: fiction

The Brothers K is one of the best books I've ever read. This is the deceptively complex story of an American family. A mother, father, four sons, and two daughters, growing up in the 50s and 60s. Their childhoods shaped by the family's two passions: baseball and religion. Their adulthoods shaped by the family's own small bundle of insecurities and conflicts, and the overwhelming nightmare of Vietnam. I'm a Canadian agnostic who doesn't like baseball, and I loved it. The story is brutally honest...more

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Aug 14, 2007 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I cannot explain why I loved this book so much except to say that I connected with it on some deep, perhaps subconcious level. This is the only book I've ever read that made me cry, really cry rather than shed a few tears. In fact I bawled nonstop for nearly half an hour towards the end. I confess I remember little about the plot, but I can recommend this book for the beautiful, vivid, unusual, honest writing style. Also the book alternatives between the narratives of each brother, and one comes...more

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Apr 24, 2012 Teresa rated it 5 of 5 stars

It may be different for other people, but we in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first. (Quote from "The Brothers Karamazov" used to head a chapter in this novel.)

I started this book after finishing The Art of Fielding. Not wanting to leave that world, I thought this book would be a good follow-up. And though this novel is an American (esp of the Pacific Northwest) epic, while the other is an American (specifically Midwestern) sliver of time, I was right. Here was another tha...more It may be different for other people, but we in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first. (Quote from "The Brothers Karamazov" used to head a chapter in this novel.)

I started this book after finishing The Art of Fielding. Not wanting to leave that world, I thought this book would be a good follow-up. And though this novel is an American (esp of the Pacific Northwest) epic, while the other is an American (specifically Midwestern) sliver of time, I was right. Here was another that I didn't want to end, one of those books I start reading more slowly near the end because of that, though the ending was completely satisfying.

The writing is funny, smart and heartfelt. I laughed; I teared up. Some of the passages may seem extraneous at first, but none of it is; it's impressive how well-structured this novel is.

It's been awhile since I read Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" but even I could tell the parallels are intentional of course, though not complete of course, (the K in the title is also because of a baseball scoring symbol, as I expected) but that doesn't take away from the originality of the world Duncan has created, though both novels do seem to contain 'everything.'

I don't think you need to be a baseball fan to enjoy this book. I'm not a fan of fishing, but those few references also seem intrinsic. The main pleasure is in the dynamics and intricacies of a family of two parents with vastly different ideas (mostly about religion) and their six children: four boys and two sisters (which almost sounds as if I'm describing my family though except for the way the brothers are described in the beginning, I felt no real comparisons) coming of age during the time of the Vietnam War, and the different paths each young man takes due to the war, and the effects each path has on the rest of the family, as a family.

This is definitely a book I could reread: it contains so much. And don't feel you need to read The Brothers Karamazov first; you don't.(less)

6 likes · like · see review

Nov 16, 2008 meosima rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1961-present

Okay. I didn't love this book. I wanted to. I'd heard great things. But I didn't. So sue me!

I know this is going to sound really lame, but here's the first thing: LOTS of baseball. I mean, I'm not one to usually be bothered when the basic subject matter of a book is something I'm not super interested in. But ... so it is this time around. I felt the book was often bogged down in explanation of the family's history with baseball, the history of baseball in general ... and I just didn't want to he...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Marzie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: diamonds, fiction

The Brothers K is a most genuine portrayal of a family and a decade in turmoil. Throw in baseball as the metaphor for this journey of a family simultaneously battling everything life, religious obsession, Vietnam and anything else that comes along and it becomes a great American tale. This is a story in which to find familiars for any reader, be they in our own families or friends or children or community or country. That is the pull of the story- these are things we know of but to read it all t...more

3 likes · like · see review

Nov 25, 2012 Nathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it" - Matt. 10:39

There, in a nutshell, is the entire argument of Duncan's best novel to date.

I'll explain, but first a little on the narrative. Duncan takes us through the history of the aptly-named Chance family. Through two religions - Seventh Day Adventism and Baseball - the family is in constant flux between flying apart and pulling back together. The brothers that Duncan creates and follows all have...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 25, 2009 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction, family, historical-fiction

The Brother's K is a story of brothers, of baseball, of bonds; it's a story of religion, of regrets, of relationships. The brothers are the Chance brothers, sons of Hugh Chance, a man whose once promising baseball career has been cut short by an accident at the mill, and Laura Chance, a woman whose religious devotion teeters on the brink towards fanaticism. Baseball and religion shape the flow of the story and the development of the Chance children (four boys and two twin girls).

Kincaid Chance,...more

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May 14, 2010 Rhonda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-fiction

What can you say about a book about baseball, at least for a major sociological and psychological theme? I think it’s wonderful, but then I grew up loving baseball. Reading the stories about the grand era of baseball greats was fascinating. I still wonder if he was right about his Ted Williams story but it remains a great tale, as so many of the others are, nonetheless.

I learned to pitch in my back yard because I was sick of being told, “You throw like a girl.” The purpose of saying this is to e...more What can you say about a book about baseball, at least for a major sociological and psychological theme? I think it’s wonderful, but then I grew up loving baseball. Reading the stories about the grand era of baseball greats was fascinating. I still wonder if he was right about his Ted Williams story but it remains a great tale, as so many of the others are, nonetheless.

I learned to pitch in my back yard because I was sick of being told, “You throw like a girl.” The purpose of saying this is to extol the heart of this book, the concept of continuously overcoming the impossible obstacles in our path. This is especially important since it has to do a lot with pitching and the nuances thereof. While one does not have to have been a pitcher, it helps at least to have been out in the field in the middle of the summer, waiting to come to bat against someone whose specialty is some horrifying pitch. As a batter, one longs for a hard connect at the blur coming at you. As a pitcher, one longs for a particular sound in the glove of the catcher: this is, every so often, the sound of perfection. The same perfection is sought by each and it is very Zen-like in its essence. This more than anything is all that is good and beautiful in this book.

This has a very clear protagonist of baseball and an antagonist as Seventh Day Adventists, or, pretty much all Judeo/Christian religion lumped together. In the beginning at least, the father of this family is deeply involved with baseball and his wife (who reminded of Mary Steenburgen for some reason) is representative of the religious zealotry to which deluded fools are driven by extraordinary circumstances in their lives. Still one can see the ultimate difficulty which divides the family: you can either watch/play baseball on Saturday or you can go to church, but you can’t do both. Zen… I mean baseball… wins out.

I didn’t expect every page to be a work of art, but I did have some problems with the book as a whole. First, the characters, other than mother and father, never seem to become fully human, at least as children. In many ways they seem to be dropped in from Franny and Zooey or other Salinger texts. They seem to be constantly reacting to something from either their father or mother. To me this makes them seem like straw characters. A greater problem, which is a growing one in modern literature, is that the writing, thoughts, ideas and such ascribed to the children don’t seem to fit most of the time, at least when they go on grand discourses about things. For example, the author reveals the history of the father by an essay by one of his sons as a freshman is high school. The author cleverly misspells lots of words and then adds some odd things, but generally no one can read the essay and believe that any of it was written by a freshman in high school! This happens a lot even allowing that these are the most precocious 6 kids on the planet.

I do not understand that writers cannot understand why, for example, that exploding a water balloon (ok, three gallons of invisible ink in a condom!) over someone's head who is about to enter a church wouldn't raise some serious collateral issues. It's creative and it’s funny, certainly, but it just doesn't work physically! Hence more than half this book is about situations which you have to take with a grain of salt. Generally speaking, the author consistently misappropriates the children's thoughts and creates scenes which are almost comically inept and impossible. I got tired of giving him the benefit of the doubt. Fortunately as the kids grow up things get better, but it leaves a taste in one’s mouth of ineptness.

David James Duncan can be a very good writer. He wrote this almost 600 page book, which I think was about 300 pages too long, but it has perhaps a few hundred pages of the very best writing imaginable, albeit with the difficulties mentioned above. He possesses a mastery of description and sheer story telling which deserves the highest of accolades. As a description of late 20th century America, I have my doubts. It is often a tremendously funny book, but it also delves into places which I feel are severely manufactured for effect. Still anyone who ever loved the game of baseball would love this central theme and would probably enjoy recapturing his or her youth in reading it.
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Nov 02, 2008 Davie Bennett rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am savoring this, that's for sure. I reached page 200 today, roughly one-third of the way through. It isn't a book that I feel good about reading on a quick trip on the bus or for five minutes while I'm waiting; I want to give it serious attention and devotion when I pick it up. It isn't a difficult or demanding read, per se, but challenges you to be there, in the family, in the moment, in order to be rewarded for your efforts. That's what I think so far, anyway.

Last night I read a passage tha...more

3 likes · like · see review

Davie Bennett I finally finished this a couple of nights ago. It felt like an epic journey. I'm going to take a pass on assigning a star rating to "The Brothers K,"...more
Nov 02, 2008 11:28am

Liza You write such beautiful reviews.
Nov 02, 2008 12:51pm

Davie Bennett I've settled on a 4-star review for this one. If there was a 4.5-star option, I would give it that. Minus .5-stars for Everett! Jerk face idiot bag.
Jan 25, 2009 04:08pm

Mar 18, 2008 Patrick Brown rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anybody looking for a good story, without any sort of postmodern shenanagans

Recommended to Patrick by: Robert Barnett Newman

What a book. Here's another book with problems, sometimes big problems, involving voice and narrative perspective. And you know what? I didn't care a lick. It's a terrific read, just bravado storytelling. The term page-turner gets thrown around a lot, but this is the real thing, the genuine article.

This is the saga of the Chance family (see, Duncan lays it on pretty thick everywhere in this book, including the characters' last names), told in detail, from the narrator's earliest childhood memor...more

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Apr 15, 2008 Jess rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Megan K, Ivan, Mandy

My boyfriend gave me this book as a birthday gift. I was initially worried I wouldn't like it, thinking of how awful it would be if something he loved wouldn't be something I loved. But even if it weren't about baseball, family, love, and how reason and religion are adversaries whose battles lay bare the fault lines in each (some of my favorite topics), I would love it for how it sprawls into a real world in your mind as you read it so when you close the pages, you miss the characters, just as y...more

5 likes · like · see review

Dec 30, 2008 Leisl rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the top 5 books I've read in the last 20 years. I loved the way the narration was done---primarily that of one character, but occasionally the story moves along by way of the various characters' letters to each others or kids' school reports that tell the story. Narration by pre-teen and teen boys causes some fantastic laughs. Felt the book was really rich with the nuanced layers of family strife that's woven with terrible loyalty as well. Character evolution over many years as well. I cr...more

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Aug 09, 2007 Mark Nicholson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I found "The Brothers K" (set in the early 60's) to have some similarities with "The Poisonwood Bible," as it revolves around a family struggling to define faith while living in the small town of Camas, located in Washington. The first half of the book is sprinkled with belly shaking segments of family stories, while the second half revolves around some tear inducing struggles to stay together. The father, a minor league pitcher, prompts a number of baseball analogies, however, the book describe...more

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Dec 31, 2007 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Alright. Some people like subtle stories that reflect real life and try to tell a story in which not a lot happens. This isn't that. It's the huge, ridiculously ambitious story of the individual members of the Chance family. It chronicles their lives over the course of a couple decades. The characters are amazing. The father is still my favorite character in any book, ever. Ultimately Duncan suceeds in writing a page turner that is also beautifully written, and thought provoking. The first time...more

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Apr 05, 2007 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a dazzlingly ambitious book. It's about love! and war! and family! and religion! and America! and baseball!! The thing is though-- it works extremely well.

I often found myself amazed that it worked as well as it did. It's a warm, compelling, likeable, and thoughtful book. It's got its philosophising and ambition, sure, but it's also just a good yarn.

It didn't get the 5th star because the last 5th or so of the book struck me as much weaker-- the plot gets kinda odd, and things start to j...more

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Jul 15, 2009 Jessie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone, without exception

My favorite novel, from one of my absolute favorite authors. I've re-read it at least a dozen times, and it's lost none of its luster.

What do I love about this book? First and foremost, Duncan is a brilliant writer. He's smart, well-read, and can bring you to both frank tears and out-loud laughter without being cliche or predictable about either.

Above all, this book is honest. Even the seen-that-a-thousand-times setups--the coming-of-age tale, the dysfunctional family, the romanticized nobility...more

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Jun 02, 2008 Bethypage42 rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone with a family

Recommended to Bethypage42 by: who knows, but I thank them

Shelves: recommended-reading, favorite-authors

Everyone who has read this book on my recomendation---loved it.
A chronicle of the unlikely Chance family. Dad is a baseball player who never quite made it to the bigs. Mom is a seventh day adventist who wants her boys to walk a more traditional path. Everett is the oldest, a contrarian with a need for the spotlight. Peter is the quiet (but wise?) child who is seeking enlightenment. Kinkaid, the narrator. Irwin, the lovable moron. And the twins, Freddie & Bet (both girls) who want to be scie...more

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Nov 21, 2011 Pennystevens rated it 4 of 5 stars

I didn't really know what was getting into when I started this one, but it can best be summed up as a family saga submerged in baseball. I'd seen many good reviews of this story, so when I saw it in the audio section at my library, I thought I'd give it a try.
At the very start of the story, I couldn't believe my ears. They are in Camas, WA the very place I was in and spend many of my waking hours. So, to some degree this story had me hooked from the start. There were so many things familiar to...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Katie Parker rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Washingtonians, baseball fans

Shelves: historical

The Brothers K was really good. I may be biased, since it takes place in Washington State, but it was one of the best so-called “great American novels” that I’ve read. (Granted I haven’t read that many of them.) Spanning several years, from 1956 to 1974, the book tells the story of the Chance family of Camas, Washington (where my grandma lives, actually). Hugh, the father, was a burgeoning baseball prodigy before a series of injuries ended his career and he ended up at Crown Z paper mill. He’s m...more

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May 13, 2011 Kerfe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, baseball

"He said there are two ways for a hitter to get the pitch he wants. The simplest way is not to want ANY pitch in particular. But the best way, he said--which sounds the same, but is really very different--is to want the very pitch you're gonna get. Including the one you can handle. But also the one that's gonn strike you out looking. And even the one that's maybe gonna bounce off your head."

To quote some cliches: this book made me LOL and also brought tears to my eyes.

It's a book about family an...more

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Dec 28, 2010 Mark Magee rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is lengthy, close to 700 pages long! I loved this book! Recommended by good friends who gave their newborn son the middle name of Kincaide,named after the character in the book who tells the story. My friends, in my opinion, really honored their son by giving him this middle name. Kincaide is thoughtful, sensitive,and fair as he relates the saga of his beloved family.

It is the coming of age story, of a unique American family struggling to find their way through the late 1960s and early...more

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Nov 03, 2010 O'linda rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the finest books I've ever read that uses baseball as a metaphor for the struggles we all face in the game of life. A washed up pitcher with a brief taste of the major leagues and his family are at the center of a saga set in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Told through the eyes of the youngest son, this is a story of a family upheaval caused by the political and economic changes that swept America after World War II. The mother and father in this story are played as opposites who ac...more

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May 04, 2010 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book had been in the atmosphere for a long time for me, and I'd been resistant to it on the grounds that every time I tried to read it, I remembered that I actually find reading about baseball to be excruciatingly boring. But finally it was recommened to me by my friend Mary, whose reading tastes I trust absolutely and without question, and who added as a tantalization that it was a beautiful book about the nature of family and religion and faith. And what on earth do I find more interestin...more This book had been in the atmosphere for a long time for me, and I'd been resistant to it on the grounds that every time I tried to read it, I remembered that I actually find reading about baseball to be excruciatingly boring. But finally it was recommened to me by my friend Mary, whose reading tastes I trust absolutely and without question, and who added as a tantalization that it was a beautiful book about the nature of family and religion and faith. And what on earth do I find more interesting than beautiful ruminations on the nature of family and religion and faith? Not much.

I cannot cannot cannot either thank Mary enough for the recommendation, or praise David James Duncan strongly enough for his writing. This is a beautiful book, written with humor and criticism and gentleness and wisdom and tremendous affection for the characters. I normally am a quick reader, but when I realized that I was reading fast enough that the book would end soon, I found that so depressing that I would force myself to read a chapter a night, and stop, and then just lie in bed with a big goofy grin on my face, savoring what I'd just treated myself too (or sobbing, as the case was. It's a beautiful and gentle book, but it is not an easy book).

Essentially, this book is an exploration of how a family (mom, dad, four sons, two daughters) are able (or not able) to stay cohesive and loving in the face of tremendous external upheaval and turmoil, and intensely different religious world views. It charts the course of this family through four decades in Oregon in the middle of the 20th century, and in particular examines the siblings search for meaning.

This book was heartbreaking, and brings home the cruelty we commit against one another, but it speaks more than anything about redemption, forgiveness, and the grace of moving on and becoming more than the sum of our broken parts.

It's rare to find a perfect book, but this book was perfect. I recommend it to everyone; even baseball stops seeming like total drudgery in the end. (less)

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May 12, 2012 Seth rated it 3 of 5 stars

This started out fairly well. I liked the narrator, I thought there was some good humor, and it seemed like things were getting set up well for a view into an American family. But I felt like things got lost in the middle. There was a lot of focus on two of the brothers, and it seemed like the rest of the family disappeared a little. Then they would pop up again in some fairly important fashion, but being absent for a while made the reappearance kind of startling. In general, I felt like the mid...more

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May 05, 2010 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing work. As with all Duncan's books, don't read it on a plane or in any other public place. People might think you've gone a bit daft when you break out in howls of laughter. I know I got a few looks...

Every time I reread it, I am astounded at the many profound insights Duncan was able to slip in sort of sneakily in between the jokes and the tragedy. The depth and weight of the storyline is superbly balanced with comedy.

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Aug 08, 2011 Melki rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: family-based-fiction, religion, sports, best-of-2011

This was a very good book - worthy of the highest rating and all the acclaim it has garnered. Though basically the story of a family's struggle to cope with changing times during the turbulent 60s, I don't recall ever reading a work of fiction that better explores the consequences of religious extremism on family life. That's serious subject matter, but the book is actually very funny with several laugh-out-loud moments.

The novel features a mother who is a strict Seventh Day Adventist and fanati...more

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About David James Duncan

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 involve fly fishing, baseball, and family.

Both 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.

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The Heart of the Monster: Why the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies Must Not Become an ExxonMobil Conduit to the Alberta Tar Sands

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Quotes from The Brothers K

“Anyone too undisciplined, too self-righteous or too self-centered to live in the world as it is has a tendency to idealize a world which ought to be. But no matter what political or religious direction such idealists choose, their visions always share one telling characteristic: in their utopias, heavens or brave new worlds, their greatest personal weakness suddenly appears to be a strength.” — 33 people liked it

“In a head-on collision with Fanatics, the real problem is always the same: how can we possibly behave decently toward people so arrogantly ignorant that they believe, first, that they possess Christ's power to bestow salvation, second, that forcing us to memorize and regurgitate a few of their favorite Bible phrases and attend their church is that salvation, and third, that any discomfort, frustration, anger or disagreement we express in the face of their moronic barrages is due not to their astounding effrontery but to our sinfulness?” — 18 people liked it

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