The Brothers K

David James Duncan’s 1992 novel, The Brothers K, is a sprawling family saga set in Washington state against the backdrop of the Vietnam War era. An extended allusion to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1879), the story is narrated by Kincaid Chance, the youngest of four brothers, as he chronicles his family’s tumultuous journey from the 1950s through the 1970s. The central conflict revolves around the opposing worldviews of his parents: his father, a minor league pitcher whose career was ended by a mill accident, and his mother, a devout Seventh-day Adventist whose faith is a reaction to a traumatic past. The novel explores themes of The Individual Impact of Communal Activities, The Tension Between Personal Faith and Organized Religion, and Navigating Family Conflict Amid Clashing Ideologies.

Author David James Duncan is a native of the Pacific Northwest, and his work, including his acclaimed debut novel The River Why (1983), often explores themes of spirituality, nature, and social critique. Upon its release, The Brothers K was named an American Library Association Notable Book and won a Pacific Northwest Bookseller Award. The novel has since gained a devoted following and is regarded as a contemporary American classic. 

This guide refers to the 2005 Dial Press Trade Paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of physical abuse, emotional abuse, child sexual abuse, mental illness, graphic violence, substance use, addiction, cursing, and illness or death.

Plot Summary

Kincaid “Kade” Chance, the youngest of four brothers, narrates the story of his family in Camas, Washington, beginning with a memory from 1956 of his father, Hugh “Papa” Chance, a semi-pro pitcher. By February 1957, the family, including Kade’s older brothers Everett, Peter, and Irwin, gathers to watch television. Their mother, Laura “Mama” Chance, is pregnant with twins. A flashback reveals that Papa’s pitching career ended the previous month when his left thumb was crushed in an accident at the Crown Zellerbach papermill. A letter from Papa’s former manager, Gale Q. Durham, expresses sorrow for the injury, calling it a kind of death.

In July 1960, a series of events Kade calls an “Underhanded Miracle” leads to him spending time alone with Papa. After Everett breaks his arm, he, Peter, and Irwin go to a Seventh Day Adventist summer camp. Mama, a devout Adventist, has a fierce argument with Papa over religion and his drinking a single beer. She leaves with the young twins, Beatrice “Bet” and Winifred “Freddy,” to stay with her brother, Marv, in Spokane. Kade refuses to go and stays with Papa, who buys a case of beer. Fearing Papa will become addicted to alcohol like Mama’s father, Kade prays unsuccessfully for the beer to disappear. Kade and Papa watch a Yankees-Indians baseball game, during which Kade correctly predicts the Yankees will tie the game, which they do, before going steelhead fishing. 

By October 1960, the family is optimistic about Papa’s lawsuit against the mill’s insurance company, which would fund a radical toe-to-thumb transplant surgery, but Papa loses the case. An “Attic Document,” an essay by Irwin, details Papa’s family history. Papa’s parents are Everett Senior, a math professor and baseball coach, and Marion “Grandawma” Chance, an English intellectual. Everett Senior dies in World War II, a loss that deeply affects the teenaged Hugh, who channels his grief into becoming a dominant high school pitcher. Torn between pro-ball dreams and college, and needing to support his mother, Hugh meets Laura Dubois. After Laura’s own mother dies, Hugh signs a professional contract with the Chicago White Sox organization to support them both.

In the spring of 1963, following a violent argument in which he punches Kade, Papa quits smoking, begins running daily, and builds a three-walled pitching shed in the backyard. He calls his new hobby “psalmball,” insisting it is a way to maintain his sanity, not a comeback attempt. Irwin’s essay continues, recounting Papa’s early pro career. After being drafted for the Korean War, Papa is forced to play on a rigged exhibition team, the “Goon Squad.” A Brigadier General who knew Papa’s father arranges his discharge. After injuring his shoulder, Papa is sent to a Double-A team in Kincaid, Oklahoma, where manager G. Q. Durham teaches him the art of “junk” pitching. As Kade grows, Papa teaches him about the subjective nature of the strike zone. One day, Irwin nearly drowns while saving a dog from a flooded river.

In winter 1964, a major family conflict, the “Psalm War,” erupts. With Papa eating late after his workouts, the brothers take turns saying grace. Everett’s agnostic prayer enrages Mama. She slaps him repeatedly until Irwin and Peter intervene. The fight escalates between Mama and Everett. Papa returns home and stops the fight. He later grants the three older boys freedom from attending church but explains that Mama’s rigidity stems from the trauma of being raised by an abusive father addicted to alcohol.

Following the Psalm War, Mama begins a “Cold War,” ceasing all motherly duties for Everett, Peter, and Kade. This forces them into domestic self-sufficiency, transforming Kade into a reluctant “feminist,” Everett into a slobbish “bohemian,” and Peter into an ascetic “Buddhist monk.” Meanwhile, the younger twins, Bet and Freddy, retain Mama’s care. In 1964, the surgeon Dr. Boyd Franken, secretly contacted by Everett, offers to perform Papa’s thumb surgery in exchange for landscaping work. 

After the successful surgery, Papa resumes his backyard pitching and recovers his strength and skill. At her church leader, Elder Babcock’s, suggestion, Mama spies on the “rebel” brothers for evidence of their “corruption” to present at an “inquisition,” but the event backfires when the evidence is found humorous and implicates Babcock’s own son. After another call from Everett, G. Q. Durham visits in 1965, is amazed by Papa’s new “Kamikaze” sinker, and convinces him to try out for the Triple-A Portland Tugs. Papa makes the team as a pitching coach and “stupid-situation reliever.” In 1965, Grandawma dies of a stroke.

The brothers’ high school athletic careers diverge. Everett and Kade quit baseball. Irwin becomes a state champion javelin thrower. Peter becomes an All-State baseball star but chooses academics at Harvard. Before leaving, Peter gives an anti-war speech at the team banquet. Everett attends the University of Washington, where he becomes a prominent anti-war activist and writer. His absurdist play, Hats, is a local success. He is chided for his simplistic radicalism by a student named Natasha. Irwin injures his shoulder in college, losing his scholarship and draft deferment. He falls in love with a girl named Linda, drops out of school, and joins a Christian hippie commune. 

In April 1970, Irwin returns home to announce that Linda is pregnant, they are getting married, and he has been drafted. His application for Conscientious Objector status was sabotaged by Elder Babcock, who sees his choices—and association with the outspoken Everett—as sinful. He also reveals Linda’s traumatic past of being raped by her father. Mama agrees to let Linda live with them while Irwin is in Vietnam. The family unravels further when Everett returns home and has a vicious argument with Mama. Kade punches Everett, who then leaves, burns his draft card, and flees to Canada. Papa discovers Mama has returned to Babcock’s church, despite Babcock’s role in Irwin being sent to Vietnam, and relapses into drinking and smoking.

The family receives devastating letters from Irwin in Vietnam, recounting his trauma after killing a young Viet Cong soldier, an act that shatters him and leads him to refer to the boy as “Zaccheus.” Everett, in exile in Shyashyakook, British Columbia, is lonely until he begins a passionate correspondence with Natasha. She visits, and they fall in love, but she leaves him months later without explanation. Meanwhile, Peter travels to India, tries and abandons living like a monk, grows ill, and is robbed while subsequently trying to leave India. Eventually, he returns to Washington.

In May 1971, Irwin has a mental health crisis after witnessing the execution of another young Viet Cong prisoner. He attacks his commanding officer, Captain Dudek, with a tube of toothpaste while singing Sabbath School songs. He is declared as having a mental illness; the Army claims the executed boy was a delusion. The family learns that Irwin is in a military psychiatric hospital in Mira Loma, California, undergoing heavy sedation and electroshock therapy. Papa visits and finds him catatonic from abuse. Major Keys, the head of the hospital, is uncooperative. Everett returns from Canada to turn himself in. He first goes to Mama’s church and delivers an impromptu sermon, pleading with the congregation to help save Irwin. Mama stands on a pew to support him. Everett is arrested by the FBI at the family home immediately after.

The church community rallies behind the family, and Mama organizes a caravan to Mira Loma. During the journey, Kade has a dream that foreshadows Papa’s impending passing. Peter devises an elaborate plan, “Operation Squeeze Play.” The caravan, including mock journalists and real Adventist doctors, confronts Major Keys at the hospital gates, using the threat of media exposure to secure Irwin’s release. He is discharged but still withdrawn and traumatized. Soon after, Papa is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He quits baseball and spends his last months at home. Irwin, though still mostly unresponsive, becomes his sole caretaker. In October 1971, Papa dies. At the wake, his ashes are placed in Mama’s blue tithing box. Everett is sentenced to three years in a work camp. Natasha writes to him, revealing she is pregnant with his son, Myshkin, and will wait for him.

In the years following Papa’s death, the family slowly heals. Irwin starts a successful business, Wind River Woodstoves, and buys a farm. Everett is paroled in 1974. During a visit to Irwin’s new farm, a story about a game involving dog food finally makes Irwin laugh his old, full-throated “loon laugh.” An Epilogue reveals that Irwin and Linda adopt several refugee children from Southeast Asia, Peter teaches wilderness survival, Everett becomes a writer and marries Natasha, and Mama moves to a trailer on Irwin’s farm. The novel closes with Irwin sitting in his armchair with his adopted son, Winter, lying across his lap, mirroring the opening scene with Papa and Kade.