Do you really know someone? How can you be sure?
Pulitzer-prize winning author Richard Russo’s latest novel, Chances Are..., is a tense, dark novel set in the picturesque East Coast. What starts as a reunion between three friends from college turns into a search for truth and identity.
Starting with the Vietnam War draft lottery on the night of December 1, 1969, Chances Are... flits back and forth between past experience and present malaise. This use of time allows Russo to show how each of the three friends/protagonists, Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey, develop individually. Each chapter is told from one of their three viewpoints–from childhood to college and through the 40 years since the draft–allowing Russo to develop each character’s unique personal struggles. All three men are flawed, scarred from their shared past as well as their individual lives at home.
There is a point at which Russo introduces a major plot twist, and the reunion between friends takes a much darker tone. A new discovery from one of the three men ignites an inquiry into a shared experience from the past, and questions arise due to this previously hidden knowledge. The three men are forced to reconcile and face the freshly unearthed truth that carries very real consequences.This makes them question who they are, what they remember, and how they view themselves.
Chances Are... asks the reader to question their own pasts and memories. Did things really happen as we thought they did? Who are the people we thought we knew?
Review by Joel
$16.00 Trade Paperback
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