[.ca] River Teeth (ISBN 0553378279)

Yes, there are worse books...:
This book is sentimental, overwritten, trendy and sickeningly mediocre. Duncan may very well be the master of kitch readers crave from years of Hollywood molding their aesthetic preferences. Perhaps it would not be so bad if Duncan actually had some biting or original insight into human lives or the human condition. He appropriates "eastern philosophy" to not only trivialize the philosophy itself, but to make his lack of originality transparent. With Duncan, eastern religion can indeed be bought in a Santa Barbara bead boutique or between the lines of a hippie's banter. YES! It truly is a horrifying experience to get lost in the store when one is a toddler. But Duncan's style and knack for cheese reduce such moments to the most trite melodrama. He is the classic example of the writer who has used more words than he knows what to do with. If you admire the aesthetics of Hallmark cards, buy this book and swoon away. For better nature writers, turn to Henry David Thoreau, (early) Robert Bly, Paul Theroux or even Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams stories. Compared to Duncan, a man like Hawthorne takes readers closer to nature by having characters walk through a forest.

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...

Really deserves more than 5 stars!:
If you laughed at the "River Why?" and cried over "The Brothers K" then you'll do much more with "River Teeth." You'll meet old friends and make new ones as well as learn who that wonderful writer, David Duncan, is. A truely wonderful book!

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.

I laughed out loud in the library . . .:
as I read this book. Although I don't like fishing (Duncan's favorite subject), I do like good stories. And Duncan knows how to write them. This book is easy to read because it is a compilation of short stories, albeit some better than others. But all the stories are worth reading at least once. And believe me, after the first time, you will be returning to read a few of the stories over and over. I know I did.