The Brothers K
David James Duncan
 Papa Chance is a former pitcher who has settled down with his wife in the mill town of Camas, Washington. They have six children. Everett Chance, the eldest, is a natural politician and powerful speaker whose passionate opposition to the Vietnam war creates much of the family tension in the book. He spends much time and effort pursuing a young Russian literature student named Natasha and finally wins her heart from draft exile in British Columbia by sending her an epic letter/novel. Everett does not have great natural athletic gifts but is a scrappy competitor. Second oldest, Peter Chance, is the intellectual brother who will study at Harvard and then in India. Though a natural athlete, Peter spends most of the book having renounced gifts of the body in his dogged pursuit of spiritual growth. After being kidnapped by con artists on an Indian train he finds enlightenment and he returns to the family in their hour of need. Kincaid Chance, the youngest brother, narrates the book yet is the member of the family we finally learn the least about. He has little or no athletic ability and serves as a mirror to reflect for us the colorful personalities that surround him. Irwin Chance, the third son, is a strapping athletic prodigy and beautiful soul. He is naturally enlightened, much in the vein of Alyosha Karamazov, and deeply religious. Yet, after conflicts with the Seventh-day Adventists in Camas, Irwin's conscientious objector status is denied and he is sent to Vietnam. After witnessing an incident where his commanding officer mistreats a Vietnamese prisoner, Irwin has a mental breakdown and is committed to an Army mental institution in California. The family, suffering from the great divisions of the 1960s and Vietnam, pulls together to travel to California and bring Irwin home. The youngest children are twins, Beatrice and Winifred (Bet and Freddy). Much like Kincaid, they reflect their brothers and yet make important contributions to the family and the novel.