David James Duncan

Not in recent memory has there been such a unique and vibrant fictional character — a character who could make us laugh so easily, feel so deeply, who speaks with such startling truth about the way we live — as Gus Orviston, the irreverent young flyfisherman in The River Why.

Leaving behind a madcap, fishing-obsessed family, Gus embarks on an extraordinary voyage of self-discovery along his beloved Oregon rivers. What he unexpectedly finds is man's wanton destruction of nature and a burning desire to commit himself to its preservation.

Here then is the funny, sensitive, very special story of one man's search: for meaning, for love, and for a sane way to live...a tale that gives a contemporary voice to the concerns and hopes of all living things on this beautiful, watery planet Earth.

If John Irving reimagined The Brothers Karamazov as one of his kooky families and Thomas Pynchon did a rewrite, the result might be something close to this long-awaited second novel by the author of The River Why. The brothers are the Chance boys, sons of Papa Toe, a minor league pitcher whose crushed thumb is replaced by a transplanted toe, and his devout Seventh Day Adventist wife. Like Dostoevsky's Karamazovs, the Chances speculate on the nature of God, delve into the nuances of what constitutes moral behavior, experience evil, suffer from criminal acts, and, finally, determine that God is love and love redeems. But these are American boys, and although their lives contain some terrible moments, this is essentially a comic novel. Among its many merits, it reflects far better than most fiction the wide variety of Sixties experiences, giving student radical and Vietnam grunt alike their sympathetic due. Baseball provides the central metaphor for this huge hypnotic novel, but although in that sport a "K" indicates a strikeout, here it scores a home run.

In his passionate, luminous novels, The River Why and The Brothers K, David James Duncan has won the devotion of countless critics and readers, earning comparisons to Harper Lee, Tom Robbins, and J.D. Salinger, to name just a few. Now Duncan distills his remarkable powers of observation into this unique collection of short stories and essays.

At the heart of Duncan's tales are characters undergoing the complex and violent process of transformation, with results both painful and wondrous. Equally affecting are his nonfiction reminiscences, the "river teeth" of the title. He likens his memories to the remains of old-growth trees that fall into Northwestern rivers and are sculpted by time and water. These experiences — shaped by his own river of time — are related with the art and grace of a master storyteller. In River Teeth, a uniquely gifted American writer blends two forms, taking us into the rivers of truth and make-believe, and all that lies in between.

"I was struck by a boyhood suspicion that rivers and mountains are myself turned inside out," writes David James Duncan. "I'd heard at church that the kingdom of heaven is within us and thought, Yeah, sure. But the first time I walked up a trout stream, fly rod in hand, I didn't feel I was 'outside' at all: I was traveling further and further in." An estimated three thousand river walks later, here is My Story as Told by Water, in which Duncan braids his contemplative, activist, and rhapsodic voices together into an irresistibly distinctive whole, speaking with a power and urgency that will recharge our national appreciation of the vital connections between our water-filled bodies and this water-covered planet.

Offering a wide-ranging, contemplative exploration of the rivers that touch his life, Duncan backs his insights with a fierce defense of the sacred cultures and fauna that living waters sustain. With a bracing blend of story, logic, science, and comedy, he dissects the hollow industrial platitudes that lead to the ruin of publicly owned rivers for private profit. Standing up for the river made famous by the pen of his neighbor, Norman Maclean, Duncan exposes America's anachronistic federal mining policy and the devastating cyanide technology to which it has led. As an advocate for the bankrupted fishing towns, Native tribes, and unraveling web of life of the Pacific Northwest, he lays bare our biological and religious obligation to breach four of the Columbia and the Snake rivers' 221 massive dams to save wild salmon. Yet Duncan centers even his darkest explorations in the joys, gratitude, and wonder that walking rivers, rod in hand, provides him.

Here is a brilliant writer revealing captivating speculations on being born lost, on the discovery of water, on wading as pilgrimage, coho as interior compass, and industrial creeks as blues tunes. Here are rivers perceived as prayer wheels, dying birds as prophets, salmon as life-givers, brown trout as role models, wilderness as our true home, wonder as true ownership, and justice as biologically and spiritually inescapable.

In God Laughs and Plays, David James Duncan argues that the de facto political party embodied by the so-called "Christian Right" has turned worship into a self-righteous betrayal of the words and example of the very Jesus it claims to praise. In opposition, Duncan offers a thought-provoking collection of "churchless sermons," stories, memoir, and conversations — all united by the contention that the way of life preached and embodied by Jesus is apolitical and should be free of media machinery.

While reminding us that the true Christian ethos scorns riches and embraces the poor; blesses peacemakers, not war-makers; and asks us to love and serve neighbors and "do good" even unto enemies, Duncan also goes a step further: he offers a poignant and inspiring glimpse into a profound new cosmology that can help humanity manage the epochal challenges of a fast globalizing and ecologically challenged world.

This unique film documents the transformation of bamboo from a hardy species of grass into a meticulously crafted split-cane fly rod. Shot on location in the lush forests of Southern China and the majestic rivers of Montana, Trout Grass captures the allure of craftsmanship and rivers as well as the notion that fishing is about much more than catching fish.

Scripted and narrated by David James Duncan

Wendell Berry and David James Duncan assess the moral, economic, ecological, and democratic ramifications of the first new national security strategy in fifty years. By turns informative, honest, and emotionally crushing, they speak to the collective conscience of our nation: "What does real security require of us? What does true patriotism require of us? What does freedom require of us?"