MPR presents David J. Duncan’s new novel ‘Sun House’
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MISSOULA — In what promises to be an extraordinary evening of story, song, and conversation, Montana Public Radio will celebrate the publication of award-winner and Missoula resident David James Duncan’s powerful new novel, “Sun House,” on Friday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m. at The Wilma. MTPR’s Lauren Korn (host of “The Write Question”) and Justin Angle (host of “A New Angle”) will preside over the festivities. Special musical guest is American singer-songwriter Jeffrey Foucault.
By all measures, the rollout of Sun House is a major publishing event with reviews and interviews already slotted in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post.
Sixteen years in the making, Sun House is an epic comedy about love, spirit, and the quest for transcendence in an anything-but-transcendent America. In it, Duncan continues exploring the American search for meaning and love that he began in his acclaimed novels The River Why (1983) and The Brothers K (1992). Set amid the gorgeous landscapes of the American West, the stunning new novel illuminates the contemporary world through the prisms of Eastern wisdom, cast-off ecstatic religious ideals, and the unpredictable, expansive yearnings of the human heart.
The spirited book launch will be presented in two segments, the first being an interview with Duncan. In the second part of the program, Duncan’s long-time friend, singer-songwriter Jeffrey Foucault, will join him on stage where Duncan will read passages from Sun House that Foucault will “illustrate” with music he’ll improvise for the occasion.
“David’s writing has helped so many of us make sense of this world’s beautiful and confounding complexity,” says Angle. “We are all so excited to dig into Sun House and re-immerse ourselves in David’s singular sensibility.”
Korn adds, “We all pine for the opportunity to be in conversation with our favorite authors; I just happen to be in the enviable position of being able to disguise my fangirl enthusiasm for David’s lyrical (and often humorous) study of humanity as part of my job description.”
Local bookseller Fact & Fiction will be selling pre-autographed copies of Sun House in The Wilma lobby. Sun House will be released nationwide on August 8 through Little, Brown & Co. Publishing.
David James Duncan is the author of the 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, the best-selling collection of “churchless sermons,” God Laughs & Plays, and, this August 8th, the novel legendary editor Michael Pietsch “will immodestly call David’s magnum opus” and writer William deBuys calls “one of the greatest imaginative achievements I’ve encountered in a lifetime of reading,” Sun House.
In two decades on the road Jeffrey Foucault has become one of the most distinctive voices in American music, refining a sound instantly recognizable for its simplicity and emotional power, a decidedly Midwestern amalgam of blues, country, rock’n’roll, and folk.
