River Teeth

by David James Duncan

Book Overview

In his passionate, luminous novels, 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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385477279
• ISBN13: 9780385477277
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

...I don't even fish

When DJD writes about a game of catch the ball burns my hand thru the mitt. When his story is about wading up a trout stream, my neck gets hot from the sun on it, I can hear the mosquitos whine, and my feet go numb from the cold water. He writes books that I could live in and I don't even play baseball. Or fish.

Required reading for all westerners with a far eastern bent

I was a hitch-hikn' looking for Sissy out there somewhere and along comes this book with the upside down fish-hook on it and I finally had the term for my favorite piece of women's clothing (i.e. 'the upper tenth of a pair of levis').Ten years later I was having babies and was reading The Brothers K with my son asleep on my chest.Now, well beyond that divorce, I find "home" in David's stories in River Teeth. His attention to me not his characters is extremely evident through his writing. I can still get chills up my spine just thinking about that Oregon concert when the lightning and thunder peeled...

My favort book is only a click away

On a long trip up and down the west coast I picked this book up in a shabby bookstore in the hills of San Francisco on a lonely rainy night. It gave me a strange and warm comfort as I battled my way through the vicous rain for the last two weeks of my trip. The book is erre in ways I cannot explain, simply because you read it and understand it so well. Everything Duncan describes has been a part of all our lives somewhere, somehow. This book deeply moved me, and though I was mearly 16 on that rainy night I can never escape the vivid imagery of Duncan's voice.

An incredible surprise

River Teeth is a richly woven and intricate collection of short works. Duncan's writing is thick like poetry; his words are delictible. River Teeth explores the beauty of life through glimpses of nature, family, and human spirituality. Duncan is my favorite author and this is my favorite book.

Excellent! Surprizing, enjoyable, humorous and wise.

I read these stories several years ago. I still refer to many of them often in conversations. I particularly liked "Her Idiots", "Giving Normal the Finger" and "The Garbage Man's Daughter". Any time I am around a stream or river, including recently with a group in New Zealand, I tell people about Duncan's book and story "River Teeth". Then I go on to praise his other books, particularly THE RIVER WHY. Great writer! Great writing!