Just Read: The Brothers K by David James Duncan

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It's been awhile since I've gotten so into a book that I couldn't put it down. It's been awhile since I really let myself enjoy a work of fiction. It's been a long while since I read a book over 500 pages.

The Brothers K flew well over my high bar. I have read David James Duncan’s book The River Why many years ago, I think when I used to actually go to the library. It was a nature book, something more typically up my alley, and it overflowed with beautiful words.

So I decided to venture into his other works, even though this particular book is fiction. (And I had no idea how many pages it was when I ordered it online. Tricky internet!) The chapters follow one family, the Chance’s, from when some of the children are yet to be born until the children are having kids themselves. “K” references strikeouts mainly, and some other things found in a definition in the middle of the book, and at least the first half of the book focuses heavily on baseball. The second half has a Russian lit flair, so you can see where the title comes from. Although I admit to not having read the original, The Brothers Karamazov, even though I adore Dostoevsky.

The book also features an excellent discussion on religion and spirituality, war and peace (not Tolstoy), mental illness, and some darker corners I will not reveal here. The beginning, when the children are young, really drew me in and kept me reading late into the night. I felt the middle lacked a bit of the simple beauty of words, but maybe I had just read too long. But the story picked back up towards the end, and I eagerly finished. And believe me, I am not one afraid of quitting books I don’t like. I don’t believe in that kind of suffering.

I highly recommend this book. It made me laugh, cry, grimace, smile, and everything in between. And although it is 600 pages or so, it reads easily, no struggle at all. I will certainly seek out more of his work.