Spirituality

Over and above anything else, Sun House has a keen interest in negotiating approaches to spirituality and spiritual connection that are disconnected from conventional religious doctrines. Throughout the novel, Duncan posits connection to one's spiritual interior as a means of uplift against forces of trauma, suffering, and resistance in the surrounding world. He also takes time to celebrate the diversity of approaches to spirituality by casting irreverence on rigid religious structures.

In one way or another, each of the prominent characters in Sun House spends the novel negotiating their relationship with their particular religious denomination. Jamey works through the loss of his mother Debbie through commune with God; Risa tries to contain her feminist ideals within the Vedic structures that have long moved her; TJ tries to square his Jesuit work with the suffering he witnesses in the world; Jervis internalizes his various observations under the...