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Chance
From the LA Times Book Prize-winning author comes a suspenseful and mind-bending novel about Eldon Chance, a forensic neuropsychiatrist at the end of his rope – now a Universal TV series starring Hugh Laurie and Diane Farr
Chance is a dark story about psychiatric mystery, sexual obsession, fractured identities, and terrifyingly realistic violence; a tale told amid the back streets of California’s Bay Area, far from the cleansing breezes of the ocean.
The antihero of this book, Dr. Eldon Chance, a neuropsychiatrist, is a man primed for spectacular ruin. Into Dr. Chance’s blighted life walks Jaclyn Blackstone, the abused, attractive wife of an Oakland homicide detective, a violent and jealous man. Jaclyn appears to be suffering from a dissociative identity disorder. In time, Chance will fall into bed with her; or is it with her alter ego, the voracious and volatile Jackie Black? The not-so-good doctor, despite his professional training, isn’t quite sure and soon finds himself up against her husband, Raymond, a formidable and dangerous adversary.
Meanwhile, Chance also meets a young man named D, a self-styled, streetwise philosopher skilled in the art of the blade. It is around this trio of unique and dangerous individuals that long-guarded secrets begin to unravel, obsessions grow, and the doctor’s carefully arranged life comes to the brink of implosion.
Chance is a twisted, harrowing, and impossible-to-put-down head trip through the fun house of fate; it's not pretty, it's not sweet, but it is disturbing and unforgettable.
'Chance takes place in the twilit world of noir, where people and things are never what they seem…For all the mayhem - its ending is delicately funny' - New York Times Book Review
'Is it too much to compare Kem Nunn to Raymond Chandler? Like Chandler, Nunn’s great subject is what lies beneath the surface, the desolation that infuses us at every turn. . . The power of this disturbing and provocative novel is that it leaves us unmoored among the signposts of a morally ambiguous universe in which, even after we have finished reading, it is uncertain who has been feeding whom' - Los Angeles Times
'Brilliant and cerebral psychological thriller' - Publisher's Weekly
337 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2014
153 people are currently reading
1851 people want to read
About the author
Kem Nunn
13 books190 followersKem Nunn (born 1948) is an American fiction novelist, surfer, magazine and television writer from California. His novels have been described as "surf-noir" for their dark themes, political overtones and surf settings. He is the author of five novels, including his seminal surf novel Tapping the Source. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Irvine.
He has collaborated with producer David Milch on the HBO Western drama series Deadwood. Milch and Nunn co-created the HBO series John from Cincinnati, a surfing series set in Imperial Beach, California which premiered on June 10, 2007. He has also written for season 5 of Sons of Anarchy.
He has collaborated with producer David Milch on the HBO Western drama series Deadwood. Milch and Nunn co-created the HBO series John from Cincinnati, a surfing series set in Imperial Beach, California which premiered on June 10, 2007. He has also written for season 5 of Sons of Anarchy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 177 reviews
May 29, 2023
Amazon synopsis:
Nunn’s new novel is a dark book involving psychiatric mystery, sexual obsession, fractured identities, and terrifyingly realistic violence—a tale told amid the back streets of California’s Bay Area, far from the cleansing breezes of the ocean. This is a landscape where nameless persons lose their identities and find new ones after days of sex in a motel room, where homeless war veterans create neo-hippie encampments—this is California noir, this is Kem Nunn country. It’s not pretty, it’s not sweet, but it is disturbing and unforgettable.
The antihero of this book, Dr. Eldon Chance, a neuropsychiatrist, is a man primed for spectacular ruin. Into Dr. Chance’s blighted life walks Jaclyn Blackstone, the abused, attractive wife of an Oakland homicide detective, a violent and jealous man. Jaclyn appears to be suffering from a dissociative identity disorder. In time, Chance will fall into bed with her—or is it with her alter ego, the voracious and volatile Jackie Black? The not-so-good doctor, despite his professional training, isn’t quite sure—and thereby hangs his fascination with her. But when you get Jaclyn, you get her husband, Raymond, a formidable and dangerous adversary.
Meanwhile, Chance also meets a young man named D, a self-styled, streetwise philosopher skilled in the art of the blade. It is around this trio of unique and dangerous individuals that longguarded secrets begin to unravel, obsessions grow, and the doctor’s carefully arranged life comes to the brink of implosion.
1930's Pulp-era icon The Shadow had the power to cloud men’s minds. The protagonist of this noir thriller is an even worthier opponent of evil: he has the power to induce “some cerebrovascular event” if so called upon.
I’ve been a fan of Kem Nunn since coming across his second novel Unassigned Territory back in the 1980s in a remaindered bin and for which I paid $1.99 plus tax.
Following that, I tracked down his previous novel, the basis of the film POINT BREAK, Tapping The Source
I own every novel of his published since then. Purchased each & every one as they came out as God herself intended me to have them.
Kem Nunn has never let me down and while this is no mere “surfer-dude" novel unlike earlier (yet equally outstanding) “surfer” novels such as Tapping The Source or Tijuana Straits or Pomona Queen, it shoots the curl and when it appears the protagonist “Chance” is overdue for a nice, reality inducing wipe out the Hand O’God manifests.
For “good” or for “bad”.
Highest of all possible recommendations.
For less biased reviews of this novel check out the NY Times review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/boo...
Or the L. A. Times review:
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketco...
Warning:
Potential Spoilers Abound in above links.
Nunn’s new novel is a dark book involving psychiatric mystery, sexual obsession, fractured identities, and terrifyingly realistic violence—a tale told amid the back streets of California’s Bay Area, far from the cleansing breezes of the ocean. This is a landscape where nameless persons lose their identities and find new ones after days of sex in a motel room, where homeless war veterans create neo-hippie encampments—this is California noir, this is Kem Nunn country. It’s not pretty, it’s not sweet, but it is disturbing and unforgettable.
The antihero of this book, Dr. Eldon Chance, a neuropsychiatrist, is a man primed for spectacular ruin. Into Dr. Chance’s blighted life walks Jaclyn Blackstone, the abused, attractive wife of an Oakland homicide detective, a violent and jealous man. Jaclyn appears to be suffering from a dissociative identity disorder. In time, Chance will fall into bed with her—or is it with her alter ego, the voracious and volatile Jackie Black? The not-so-good doctor, despite his professional training, isn’t quite sure—and thereby hangs his fascination with her. But when you get Jaclyn, you get her husband, Raymond, a formidable and dangerous adversary.
Meanwhile, Chance also meets a young man named D, a self-styled, streetwise philosopher skilled in the art of the blade. It is around this trio of unique and dangerous individuals that longguarded secrets begin to unravel, obsessions grow, and the doctor’s carefully arranged life comes to the brink of implosion.
1930's Pulp-era icon The Shadow had the power to cloud men’s minds. The protagonist of this noir thriller is an even worthier opponent of evil: he has the power to induce “some cerebrovascular event” if so called upon.
I’ve been a fan of Kem Nunn since coming across his second novel Unassigned Territory back in the 1980s in a remaindered bin and for which I paid $1.99 plus tax.
Following that, I tracked down his previous novel, the basis of the film POINT BREAK, Tapping The Source
I own every novel of his published since then. Purchased each & every one as they came out as God herself intended me to have them.
Kem Nunn has never let me down and while this is no mere “surfer-dude" novel unlike earlier (yet equally outstanding) “surfer” novels such as Tapping The Source or Tijuana Straits or Pomona Queen, it shoots the curl and when it appears the protagonist “Chance” is overdue for a nice, reality inducing wipe out the Hand O’God manifests.
For “good” or for “bad”.
Highest of all possible recommendations.
For less biased reviews of this novel check out the NY Times review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/boo...
Or the L. A. Times review:
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketco...
Warning:
Potential Spoilers Abound in above links.
August 13, 2016
2.5 STARS
I have to be honest, I bumped this up my TBR shelf because of Kem Nunn. I requested this galley on the strength of its intriguing blurb (Sex! And Crazy People!) but it's the season finale of Sons of Anarchy that propelled me to read this earlier than I intended. See Kem Nunn is a part of the show's writing team and anyone who connects that blurb with what SoA has delivered for six seasons (ie. women smacking other women with skateboards? The objectification of Charlie Hunnam's ass?) how could this fail?
Dr. Eldon Chance is on the brink, juggling a life that he barely recognizes as his anymore. His unemployed wife is divorcing him for a younger man, their daughter is growing more and more distant, the iRS is onto him and his work as a professional expert witness in court is no longer enough to pay the bills. 49-years old and helpless, Chance is drawn to the seedy, underbelly of San Francisco's… er, fancy furniture forgers to remedy his financial woes and to his troubled patient Jaclyn Blackstone to restore some of his manhood by playing as his knight in shining armor against her abusive detective husband. And just to make things more interesting, Jaclyn has a multiple personality disorder and one of her personas is this side of a nymphomaniac who likes to break prostate glands.
This is one of the most difficult books I've read, that I'm actually reluctant to say anything about it because I don't know if the unreliability of Chance as a narrator (at one point he describes Jaclyn as five-foot-one, in another she's five-foot-five), the allusions to hallucinations, the tangential and blurry references towards Nietzsche… I don't know if these are all pieces of someone's psychosis and I'm supposed to understand it as thus at that level. But since this was told from a third person's POV the narrative comes across cold, British and ancient, rendering the rambling nature of the storytelling pointless and an ill-fit to reflect Chance's state of mind.
Or maybe its all just plain bullshittery disguised in frou-frou run-on sentences running into each other, leaving a catastrophic pile of almost sensible logic in its wake.
Yes that's right, that is ONE fucking sentence. Its hard enough to keep track of which pants I've already worn last week but to keep track of THAT? Way too much braining, dude.
Or maybe this book was just too smart for me. Hard to admit it but that could very well be where the problem lay. But I do believe that contingent to a successful psychological thriller is the reader being able to understand the basic foundations of the story. This story assumes you have some understanding of the tenets of psychiatry, of Nietzsche, Freud, De Clerembault Syndrome, Axioms and the Banach-Taraski paradox, which is flattering I guess, to some degree, to be expected to know all these things as well as one knows the breakfast menu at McDonald's.
Then you realize you DON'T know all these things and you're sent in a spiral of self-doubt and loathing.
Thanks book. Thanks.
Maybe these are the machinations of a man on the precipice of becoming his own patient. Maybe I should have read this in one sitting (at the expense of a nosebleed as that quote is but one of the many run-on paragraphs this book had) to keep my focus.
And maybe its entirely my fault for being too suspicious of every character in this psychological thriller seeing as nearly everyone in this book has a psychiatric condition diagnosed by Dr. Chance. It's probably also my fault for having experienced one too many WTF plot -twists that my reading brain's default setting is to interpret conversations and dialogue beyond what is being presented at face value. I mean watching 12 Monkeys, and that club Chuck Palahnuik expressly forbids us from talking about and even reading Gone Girl can really do a number in your brain when dealing with this genre. So yeah, I stuck around, waiting for that A-ha! moment, for the pieces to fall into their place and make sense of everything.
Which never came.
If you ever plan on reading this, there are no life rafts, no diaries, no video recordings to make sense of it all.
My grasp of this story is similar to seeing something through a thick pane of opaque glass with water running down its surface under very dim lighting. I can see the parts, I can assume their movements and intentions, but I second guess every picture I form in the back of my mind. Maybe that was the point? To be vague and ambiguous, one run-on sentence after another?
Who ever can derive pleasure from all that…. needs to call me and explain.
Also on BookLikes
ARC provided by Scribner thru NetGalley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. QUotes may not appear in the final edition.
I have to be honest, I bumped this up my TBR shelf because of Kem Nunn. I requested this galley on the strength of its intriguing blurb (Sex! And Crazy People!) but it's the season finale of Sons of Anarchy that propelled me to read this earlier than I intended. See Kem Nunn is a part of the show's writing team and anyone who connects that blurb with what SoA has delivered for six seasons (ie. women smacking other women with skateboards? The objectification of Charlie Hunnam's ass?) how could this fail?
Dr. Eldon Chance is on the brink, juggling a life that he barely recognizes as his anymore. His unemployed wife is divorcing him for a younger man, their daughter is growing more and more distant, the iRS is onto him and his work as a professional expert witness in court is no longer enough to pay the bills. 49-years old and helpless, Chance is drawn to the seedy, underbelly of San Francisco's… er, fancy furniture forgers to remedy his financial woes and to his troubled patient Jaclyn Blackstone to restore some of his manhood by playing as his knight in shining armor against her abusive detective husband. And just to make things more interesting, Jaclyn has a multiple personality disorder and one of her personas is this side of a nymphomaniac who likes to break prostate glands.
This is one of the most difficult books I've read, that I'm actually reluctant to say anything about it because I don't know if the unreliability of Chance as a narrator (at one point he describes Jaclyn as five-foot-one, in another she's five-foot-five), the allusions to hallucinations, the tangential and blurry references towards Nietzsche… I don't know if these are all pieces of someone's psychosis and I'm supposed to understand it as thus at that level. But since this was told from a third person's POV the narrative comes across cold, British and ancient, rendering the rambling nature of the storytelling pointless and an ill-fit to reflect Chance's state of mind.
Or maybe its all just plain bullshittery disguised in frou-frou run-on sentences running into each other, leaving a catastrophic pile of almost sensible logic in its wake.
Their combined reports spoke to the absolute absurdity and utter frailty of things, to the shining truth that lay beneath what they were trying to sell and he wondered if the detective had ever been worn down by it or had wanted in some way of his own to strike through, to break free, to go under that he might rise above, before time and circumstance came for him as they will come for us all, never guessing, as people never do, that in a darkened alley behind a european massage parlor in a part of the city known as Ghost Town, yet one more of the walking wounded, skilled beyond reckoning in the art of the blade, was waiting to say hello.
Yes that's right, that is ONE fucking sentence. Its hard enough to keep track of which pants I've already worn last week but to keep track of THAT? Way too much braining, dude.
Or maybe this book was just too smart for me. Hard to admit it but that could very well be where the problem lay. But I do believe that contingent to a successful psychological thriller is the reader being able to understand the basic foundations of the story. This story assumes you have some understanding of the tenets of psychiatry, of Nietzsche, Freud, De Clerembault Syndrome, Axioms and the Banach-Taraski paradox, which is flattering I guess, to some degree, to be expected to know all these things as well as one knows the breakfast menu at McDonald's.
Then you realize you DON'T know all these things and you're sent in a spiral of self-doubt and loathing.
Thanks book. Thanks.
Maybe these are the machinations of a man on the precipice of becoming his own patient. Maybe I should have read this in one sitting (at the expense of a nosebleed as that quote is but one of the many run-on paragraphs this book had) to keep my focus.
And maybe its entirely my fault for being too suspicious of every character in this psychological thriller seeing as nearly everyone in this book has a psychiatric condition diagnosed by Dr. Chance. It's probably also my fault for having experienced one too many WTF plot -twists that my reading brain's default setting is to interpret conversations and dialogue beyond what is being presented at face value. I mean watching 12 Monkeys, and that club Chuck Palahnuik expressly forbids us from talking about and even reading Gone Girl can really do a number in your brain when dealing with this genre. So yeah, I stuck around, waiting for that A-ha! moment, for the pieces to fall into their place and make sense of everything.
Which never came.
If you ever plan on reading this, there are no life rafts, no diaries, no video recordings to make sense of it all.
My grasp of this story is similar to seeing something through a thick pane of opaque glass with water running down its surface under very dim lighting. I can see the parts, I can assume their movements and intentions, but I second guess every picture I form in the back of my mind. Maybe that was the point? To be vague and ambiguous, one run-on sentence after another?
Who ever can derive pleasure from all that…. needs to call me and explain.
Also on BookLikes
ARC provided by Scribner thru NetGalley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. QUotes may not appear in the final edition.
August 23, 2014
If the bar is a psychological thriller pace, then CHANCE didn’t measure up. It moved at a slow, leisurely pace instead of an all-out race. The vocabulary and sentence structure weighed in with a bit more heft than one might expect from your typical thriller, but I still felt shortchanged in the end. I had higher hopes for this tale, but I ended up facing the firing squad of disappointment with my head lowered and my hands held high.
Jackie Black proved a bit more intriguing as a character than the prim and proper Jaclyn Blackstone, and Dr. Eldon Chance certainly had more than a few issues to work through. And there were other characters with issues to spare, leading the charge of disparity and marching out of step. Which did up the interest but I still managed to end up less than fully engaged. What made me shift a little more to the left was the forgettable nature of this troublesome tale.
Nothing really stood out for me. Instead of being twisted in knots, I found myself sorely lacking in the suspense department, and maybe I didn’t know about the bomb underneath the table that was about to go off, or the detective with the threats that seemed a little less demanding than I would have preferred. Either way, I ended the tale somewhat impressed with the writing but feeling as though the story lacked more than a few thrills.
I received this book for free through NetGalley.
Cross-posted at Robert's Reads
Jackie Black proved a bit more intriguing as a character than the prim and proper Jaclyn Blackstone, and Dr. Eldon Chance certainly had more than a few issues to work through. And there were other characters with issues to spare, leading the charge of disparity and marching out of step. Which did up the interest but I still managed to end up less than fully engaged. What made me shift a little more to the left was the forgettable nature of this troublesome tale.
Nothing really stood out for me. Instead of being twisted in knots, I found myself sorely lacking in the suspense department, and maybe I didn’t know about the bomb underneath the table that was about to go off, or the detective with the threats that seemed a little less demanding than I would have preferred. Either way, I ended the tale somewhat impressed with the writing but feeling as though the story lacked more than a few thrills.
I received this book for free through NetGalley.
Cross-posted at Robert's Reads
August 26, 2014
The most disappointing book I've read all year. Kem Nunn has abandoned almost everything that made him great in favor of a muddled, boring, utterly aimless stroll through the Bay Area. Nunn's gift for moody, California noir scene-setting has vanished. He can't even describe San Francisco's fog in a compelling manner. Instead, his text is riddled with the lamest cliches on every page, so many that I wondered if I was being pranked. His storytelling devices are also incredibly cliched _ multiple personalities, really? Every character save the lead is woefully underwritten, a half-hearted combination of cliche and weak imagination. The finale is laughably unsatisfying _ Chance doesn't remember what happened and wasn't involved _ and we're left with Nunn apparently anticipating a series of books about this weak, unfocused protagonist and his superhuman sidekick. It's such a depressing experience to realise Chance and Tapping the Source were written by the same man. Chance contains almost nothing that I love about Nunn, aside from a few stray turns of elegant phrase, and so much that I hate about modern pulp fiction. Two of the worst books I've read in the last 2 years were novels set in my native Bay Area by two of my favorite writers: Michael Chabon's awful Telegraph Avenue, and now Kem Nunn's Chance. Ugh.
October 1, 2018
I have this habit of going into bookstores when there is an offer on, only to find myself short one book to get said deal. This regularly results in my scanning the shelves until something grabs my attention. Kem Nunn’s Chance is one such book. It sounded interesting enough, and I thought I’d give it a try.
Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where I wish I’d picked something else instead. There was plenty of potential with Chance – there were so many things introduced to us throughout, numerous elements I should have enjoyed – yet I found myself disinterested for the majority of the book. I kept waiting for something big to happen, for something good to grab me, only to find myself disappointed by what I was given. There was a short period of time where I thought things may have gotten good, where my rating moved up to a two-star rating, yet the book quickly fell back to the one-star standard I experienced throughout.
It simply didn’t do anything for me. I did not like the characters; I was not sucked in by what was supposed to be the thriller element; I felt as though nothing really happened. With there being so many elements introduced, something should have grabbed me, yet nothing did.
I really did want to enjoy this one, but in the end, I was just glad when it was over.
Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where I wish I’d picked something else instead. There was plenty of potential with Chance – there were so many things introduced to us throughout, numerous elements I should have enjoyed – yet I found myself disinterested for the majority of the book. I kept waiting for something big to happen, for something good to grab me, only to find myself disappointed by what I was given. There was a short period of time where I thought things may have gotten good, where my rating moved up to a two-star rating, yet the book quickly fell back to the one-star standard I experienced throughout.
It simply didn’t do anything for me. I did not like the characters; I was not sucked in by what was supposed to be the thriller element; I felt as though nothing really happened. With there being so many elements introduced, something should have grabbed me, yet nothing did.
I really did want to enjoy this one, but in the end, I was just glad when it was over.
May 21, 2018
Chance is a modern take on the classic noir-crime genre of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (especially Hammett as the story uses San Francisco and Oakland as it's setting).
Nunn waxes philosophical through out the novel, having his characters discuss Nietzsche, quote Kierkegaard (purity of heart is to will one thing), and ponder the meaning of meaning.
But make no doubt about the high-brow existential angst his main character Dr Chance endures both as an eager listener and as insufferable wind-bag, this novel's plot is fueled by lust, greed, violence, murder, guilt, and love.
And Nunn's writing gets better with age. He's been working on TV lately (Son's of Anarchy especially) and maybe he wrote this novel as a way to get away from the collaborative world of screenwriting and back to something personal, which is how his prose feel.
For those familiar with San Francisco, and even more so with Oakland & Berkeley, there's the added treat of reading a story set in this locale that gets everything right. Nunn, a native of Southern California, describes and uses Oakland & Berkeley for Chance far better than Michael Chabon did for Telegraph Ave.
Some of my favorite quotes:
Chance to Jaclyn: An axiom is a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it. You could say that's how we live. Life presents us with choices. We're defined by the choices we make yet we make them in uncertainty.
Chance's first instinct was to indulge in the luxury of doubting his observation. It was after all the night on the heels of the day in the wake of the previous night.
Reflection on Spenger's" Restaurant in Berkeley ... Chance drank at the bar, for it was no longer even the student crowd of his first days in San Francisco, but a sad gathering of what seemed to be drunken tourists dressed for whale watching.
The Cliff House rose in the distance, a pale edifice above seawater the color of asphalt.
... he was to have trusted in himself and the great god of reason but it's all starting to feel like trusting in transubstantiation or resurrection of the dead and Chance is losing his religion along with his nerve...
Nunn waxes philosophical through out the novel, having his characters discuss Nietzsche, quote Kierkegaard (purity of heart is to will one thing), and ponder the meaning of meaning.
But make no doubt about the high-brow existential angst his main character Dr Chance endures both as an eager listener and as insufferable wind-bag, this novel's plot is fueled by lust, greed, violence, murder, guilt, and love.
And Nunn's writing gets better with age. He's been working on TV lately (Son's of Anarchy especially) and maybe he wrote this novel as a way to get away from the collaborative world of screenwriting and back to something personal, which is how his prose feel.
For those familiar with San Francisco, and even more so with Oakland & Berkeley, there's the added treat of reading a story set in this locale that gets everything right. Nunn, a native of Southern California, describes and uses Oakland & Berkeley for Chance far better than Michael Chabon did for Telegraph Ave.
Some of my favorite quotes:
Chance to Jaclyn: An axiom is a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it. You could say that's how we live. Life presents us with choices. We're defined by the choices we make yet we make them in uncertainty.
Chance's first instinct was to indulge in the luxury of doubting his observation. It was after all the night on the heels of the day in the wake of the previous night.
Reflection on Spenger's" Restaurant in Berkeley ... Chance drank at the bar, for it was no longer even the student crowd of his first days in San Francisco, but a sad gathering of what seemed to be drunken tourists dressed for whale watching.
The Cliff House rose in the distance, a pale edifice above seawater the color of asphalt.
... he was to have trusted in himself and the great god of reason but it's all starting to feel like trusting in transubstantiation or resurrection of the dead and Chance is losing his religion along with his nerve...
August 7, 2014
a most compelling noir horror. dr chance becomes emmoiled with a patient, who is abused and practically held hostage by her homicidal homicide detective ex-husband. or is she?
so dr. chance is gonna be her knight in shining armor, his sidekick an ex-special forces killer from afghanistan wars. or is he?
so dr. chance, such a meticulous, conservative soul, starts making choices, one leading to the other, that get him and his lying, cruel, sadistic running buddies and enemies into deeper and deeper shit.
a bit of a departure for kemm nunn who has become famous for his surfer socal noir, he moves to the mannered streets of san francisco, but his people are just as fucked up.
so dr. chance is gonna be her knight in shining armor, his sidekick an ex-special forces killer from afghanistan wars. or is he?
so dr. chance, such a meticulous, conservative soul, starts making choices, one leading to the other, that get him and his lying, cruel, sadistic running buddies and enemies into deeper and deeper shit.
a bit of a departure for kemm nunn who has become famous for his surfer socal noir, he moves to the mannered streets of san francisco, but his people are just as fucked up.
October 10, 2017
This is ambitious and provocative, complex in construction and in its prose. Superficially it treads the same neurotic waters as Jonathan Kellerman’s Dr Alex Delaware investigations, where the reader is given psychological insights into the mechanisms of the unravelling mind.
But author Kem Nunn takes many more risks than Kellerman does, and pulls away all the anchors from his good doctor’s sleek, urban existence. Think of the corruption of Will Graham in the TV series Hannibal and you’ll get a sense of the existential peril which assaults forensic neuropsychiatrist Dr Eldon Chance.
The vulnerable Dr Chance falls for a femme fatale when he’s at a low ebb, emotionally and financially exhausted by divorce. He makes a questionable decision which sets the dominos of moral ambiguity tumbling… until suddenly he’s confronted with all too physically painful consequences of his increasingly criminal actions. The author has crafted a modern day descent into hell, where weakness, lust, greed, cowardice and obsession contribute to the professional, intellectual and spiritual unravelling of the central character.
Psychology and psychiatry are at the core of the story. The opening chapters feature a succession of superb case study sketches, in which the doctor encapsulates his patients’ personality disorders in a few presumptuous statements. He is pride personified, heading for a very big fall. It comes his way in the shape of sexual obsession mixed with multiple personalities…
Speaking of which, the chain of events surrounding the woman of his dreams / bunny-boiler, and her possessive corrupt cop husband, become increasingly unlikely as the plot progresses. Even my credibility was strained in the final chapters.
On the other hand, D is a fabulous character. Is he really the implacable, streetwise, military veteran he appears to be? Or is he another fantasist, another individual carving out an identity of his own creation? Hang on, isn’t that what we’re all doing?
Only a brave author risks incorporating Kierkegaard and Nietzsche into noir these days. Those readers who prefer their psychological thriller to be free of geometric paradoxes, and who hate half-page paragraphs made up of a single, convoluted sentence stuffed with dependent clauses, should probably stick to something more conventional.
8/10
There's a more detailed review (and many others) over at https://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress...
But author Kem Nunn takes many more risks than Kellerman does, and pulls away all the anchors from his good doctor’s sleek, urban existence. Think of the corruption of Will Graham in the TV series Hannibal and you’ll get a sense of the existential peril which assaults forensic neuropsychiatrist Dr Eldon Chance.
The vulnerable Dr Chance falls for a femme fatale when he’s at a low ebb, emotionally and financially exhausted by divorce. He makes a questionable decision which sets the dominos of moral ambiguity tumbling… until suddenly he’s confronted with all too physically painful consequences of his increasingly criminal actions. The author has crafted a modern day descent into hell, where weakness, lust, greed, cowardice and obsession contribute to the professional, intellectual and spiritual unravelling of the central character.
Psychology and psychiatry are at the core of the story. The opening chapters feature a succession of superb case study sketches, in which the doctor encapsulates his patients’ personality disorders in a few presumptuous statements. He is pride personified, heading for a very big fall. It comes his way in the shape of sexual obsession mixed with multiple personalities…
Speaking of which, the chain of events surrounding the woman of his dreams / bunny-boiler, and her possessive corrupt cop husband, become increasingly unlikely as the plot progresses. Even my credibility was strained in the final chapters.
On the other hand, D is a fabulous character. Is he really the implacable, streetwise, military veteran he appears to be? Or is he another fantasist, another individual carving out an identity of his own creation? Hang on, isn’t that what we’re all doing?
Only a brave author risks incorporating Kierkegaard and Nietzsche into noir these days. Those readers who prefer their psychological thriller to be free of geometric paradoxes, and who hate half-page paragraphs made up of a single, convoluted sentence stuffed with dependent clauses, should probably stick to something more conventional.
8/10
There's a more detailed review (and many others) over at https://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress...
November 18, 2017
I read this while watching the series on Hulu which is based on it. (“Chance,” starring Hugh Laurie) I think I enjoyed the book a little more than the series, although it was interesting to see how the book was adapted for the screen. A great deal of the dialogue was straight from the book, which perhaps isn’t surprising considering that the author has written for shows like “Deadwood” and “Sons of Anarchy,” besides being a novelist.
The main character, Eldon Chance, is at a crossroads in his life. Basically everything he once took for granted is falling apart. The question is, did he go looking for what happens to him in this book, or was it just chance?
The novel is more than an interesting plot. The main characters are memorable (especially Big D) and the troubles Chance encounters are just more extreme versions of things we all grapple with: identity, dishonesty, integrity, love, obsession, loyalty, friendship, bucking the status quo, and making things right.
If you have to choose between the book and the series, I would choose the book. But I think they complement each other, plus I think there’s a second season that goes beyond the scope of this book, so if you can, I would read the book and watch the series.
The main character, Eldon Chance, is at a crossroads in his life. Basically everything he once took for granted is falling apart. The question is, did he go looking for what happens to him in this book, or was it just chance?
The novel is more than an interesting plot. The main characters are memorable (especially Big D) and the troubles Chance encounters are just more extreme versions of things we all grapple with: identity, dishonesty, integrity, love, obsession, loyalty, friendship, bucking the status quo, and making things right.
If you have to choose between the book and the series, I would choose the book. But I think they complement each other, plus I think there’s a second season that goes beyond the scope of this book, so if you can, I would read the book and watch the series.
April 3, 2014
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Scribner!
I feel so deceived by this book, it is a classic case of false advertising. So for my review, I will go through the synopsis sentence by sentence and tell you how it was a lie.
Read the rest of this review at: Written Among the Stars
I feel so deceived by this book, it is a classic case of false advertising. So for my review, I will go through the synopsis sentence by sentence and tell you how it was a lie.
Read the rest of this review at: Written Among the Stars
July 16, 2015
Mysterious Book Report No. 155
by John Dwaine McKenna
Some of the best thriller and crime fiction stories are built around the premise of an ordinary person being put into an extraordinary situation. For example . . . Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider and as a result, develops supernatural powers which totally change his life as he becomes ‘The Amazing Spiderman,’ a crusading crime fighter and doer of good deeds. Far fetched? Absolutely, you betcha. Does it make for good stories? Ditto. What I want to emphasize however, is not the Spiderman stories, but that one extraordinary event which changed him forever and made him a super hero.
In Chance, (Scribner, $26.00, 320 pages, ISBN 978-0-7432-8924-5) by Kem Nunn, we’re introduced to Dr. Eldon Chance, a forensic psychiatrist who makes his living by reviewing the medical files of persons accused of committing a crime, then testifying in court as to their sanity. He’s a perfectly ordinary guy who’s estranged from his wife, about to be divorced, living in an apartment while his soon to be ex-wife is living with her personal trainer boyfriend and Chance’s estranged teenaged daughter in the house Chance used to own, and is still paying for. He’s a guy who is teetering on the precipice of ruination, if not damnation. It’s been years since Chance has seen a patient, because his type of practice doesn’t require it. He’s a disaster just waiting to happen, and happen it does when a patient named Jaclyn Blackstone is referred to him, suffering from periods of memory loss and an inability to concentrate for long periods of time. Dr. Chance diagnoses her as possibly having a multiple personality disorder, brought about by physical, psychological or sexual abuse. She’s married to an abusive Oakland homicide detective who’s threatened to kill her if she tries to leave him. Of course, she’s a gorgeous California beauty with drop dead good looks and a huge sexual appetite . . . making it oh, so easy, for Chance to commit the ultimate breach of medical ethics and tumble head over heels into bed with her. Suddenly, his ordinary life is turned upside down as Dr. Chance is hunted by Jaclyn’s morally bent, jealous husband and his cohorts in the police department. In fear of his life, Chance hooks up with a misfit, ex-special forces soldier known only as ‘Big D’ who tries to instruct the hapless psychiatrist in urban guerilla fighting techniques without much success. The novel is twisted, suspenseful and diabolic, just what you’d expect from a writer of TV shows like Sons of Anarchy and Deadwood, which in fact Kem Nunn has done. Action and intrigue fans will be entranced, delighted and absorbed!
Like the review? The greatest compliment you can give is to share it with others on Facebook, or follow us on Goodreads.
www.Facebook.com/JohnDwaineMcKenna
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by John Dwaine McKenna
Some of the best thriller and crime fiction stories are built around the premise of an ordinary person being put into an extraordinary situation. For example . . . Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider and as a result, develops supernatural powers which totally change his life as he becomes ‘The Amazing Spiderman,’ a crusading crime fighter and doer of good deeds. Far fetched? Absolutely, you betcha. Does it make for good stories? Ditto. What I want to emphasize however, is not the Spiderman stories, but that one extraordinary event which changed him forever and made him a super hero.
In Chance, (Scribner, $26.00, 320 pages, ISBN 978-0-7432-8924-5) by Kem Nunn, we’re introduced to Dr. Eldon Chance, a forensic psychiatrist who makes his living by reviewing the medical files of persons accused of committing a crime, then testifying in court as to their sanity. He’s a perfectly ordinary guy who’s estranged from his wife, about to be divorced, living in an apartment while his soon to be ex-wife is living with her personal trainer boyfriend and Chance’s estranged teenaged daughter in the house Chance used to own, and is still paying for. He’s a guy who is teetering on the precipice of ruination, if not damnation. It’s been years since Chance has seen a patient, because his type of practice doesn’t require it. He’s a disaster just waiting to happen, and happen it does when a patient named Jaclyn Blackstone is referred to him, suffering from periods of memory loss and an inability to concentrate for long periods of time. Dr. Chance diagnoses her as possibly having a multiple personality disorder, brought about by physical, psychological or sexual abuse. She’s married to an abusive Oakland homicide detective who’s threatened to kill her if she tries to leave him. Of course, she’s a gorgeous California beauty with drop dead good looks and a huge sexual appetite . . . making it oh, so easy, for Chance to commit the ultimate breach of medical ethics and tumble head over heels into bed with her. Suddenly, his ordinary life is turned upside down as Dr. Chance is hunted by Jaclyn’s morally bent, jealous husband and his cohorts in the police department. In fear of his life, Chance hooks up with a misfit, ex-special forces soldier known only as ‘Big D’ who tries to instruct the hapless psychiatrist in urban guerilla fighting techniques without much success. The novel is twisted, suspenseful and diabolic, just what you’d expect from a writer of TV shows like Sons of Anarchy and Deadwood, which in fact Kem Nunn has done. Action and intrigue fans will be entranced, delighted and absorbed!
Like the review? The greatest compliment you can give is to share it with others on Facebook, or follow us on Goodreads.
www.Facebook.com/JohnDwaineMcKenna
www.Goodreads.com/JohnDwaineMcKenna
May 3, 2014
This book pushed so hard on the noir scale, it tipped over to the nyahhhh scale. The dark elements of this story are matched only by the preponderance of fog - which is preposterous to anyone who knows the Bay Area. Neither life nor fog are as relentlessly hammering as presented here. Nunn has a number of good elements in his hand including his agility to breathe life into his offbeat characters. "D" a largely self-invented warrior and Chance's assistant, Lucy with quirks a-poppin' both have great appeal and charm in Nunn's dark and depressing world.
Sadly, the overall impact of the story neither enlightens nor reveals more nuanced views of human thought and behavior. It just keeps flailing away at the reader, thwack a wack a thawck, that people are motivated by selfish and greedy impulses, that everyone is a whack job at heart, that we spend our days weaving through horrors that are largely self-created.
Chanceis a ceaseless tale of woe and humans behaving badly that will appeal to many readers intrigued with noir. For myself, I'd rather read Misery again than spend more time with Nunn's creations. And the Bay Area does not feel anything like this book. I understand now that the author hails from Southern California. Uh-huh.
February 4, 2023
Not totally sure what I just read… the plot had promise but the execution was just plain bad. The book is about a psychiatrist named Chance who takes on a patient named Jaclyn who suffers from multiple personality disorder. The psychiatrist becomes obsessed with her and sets forth to free her from her abusive husband. The two seem to fall in love, even though Chance doesn’t always know which version of Jaclyn he is getting.
There was so much fluff and filler that I found myself not knowing wtf I was reading. The author tried to make so many analogies that i found myself not knowing if what I was reading was actually happening or if it was just a comparison. There was so much filler throughout the book- not that much actually happens but there are so many words. When the book is actually playing out, it’s like digging through a pile of junk to find the value. I’m not even really sure how the book ended lol
There was so much fluff and filler that I found myself not knowing wtf I was reading. The author tried to make so many analogies that i found myself not knowing if what I was reading was actually happening or if it was just a comparison. There was so much filler throughout the book- not that much actually happens but there are so many words. When the book is actually playing out, it’s like digging through a pile of junk to find the value. I’m not even really sure how the book ended lol
March 13, 2014
The best Robert Stone novel NOT written by Robert Stone...all of the familiar Stone tropes(Nietzsche,The Bible,Shakespeare,Basic Ontology,the Grey Rat,Sentient Mud,sociopathic Zen Lunatics,drugs,alcohol,feckless and disorderly heroes,damaged women,children abandoned to their own devices,,,and that's just off the top of my head) are here in such abundance that it goes beyond homage into ventriloquism...loving Stone's work as I do it's heartening to see a good writer so influenced by and appreciative of the work of The Master...and if you've never read Stone "Chance" is still a terrific and provocative novel...
July 21, 2014
5 stars
January 2, 2019
A disappointing read.
February 17, 2022
I picked this up because I had just watched the mini-series on Hulu, starring Hugh Laurie. The tv show was hard, the first few episodes had little direction except for the promise of the relationship between Laurie and Gretchen Mol. It did have one interesting character, a hulk known as "D". The highlight of the first few episodes was to see what D was doing since the Chance character wasn't being interesting.
The book is true to the tv series. Had I not watched the tv show and had an idea of what was occurring I'm not sure I would have stuck with it. Nunn has an annoying way of telling a story. He gives you an ending and then explains how the story got there. In the second part of the book (as with the tv series) the story does become more interesting with more Gretchen. Her husband appears as a dirty cop and Chance finds himself out of his league in the criminal world.
I read some good reviews of Nunn's books before starting this, but I'm not interested in reading another. I would like to see Ms. Mol again.
The book is true to the tv series. Had I not watched the tv show and had an idea of what was occurring I'm not sure I would have stuck with it. Nunn has an annoying way of telling a story. He gives you an ending and then explains how the story got there. In the second part of the book (as with the tv series) the story does become more interesting with more Gretchen. Her husband appears as a dirty cop and Chance finds himself out of his league in the criminal world.
I read some good reviews of Nunn's books before starting this, but I'm not interested in reading another. I would like to see Ms. Mol again.
April 24, 2019
Storia di un abile psichiatra che si ritrova invischiato in una faccenda che prende una piega morbosa e turberà il suo equilibrio lavorativo e familiare.
La storia è senza dubbio interessante e si evince un certo impegno da parte dell'autore nella ricerca in ambito psichiatrico (i casi, i pazienti ecc). La narrazione, tuttavia, tende a precipitare più volte, rendendo alcuni passaggi noiosi e poco accattivanti per il lettore.
In generale è comunque un buon libro per gli amanti del genere e considerato anche il prezzo, mi sento di consigliarne l'acquisto.
La storia è senza dubbio interessante e si evince un certo impegno da parte dell'autore nella ricerca in ambito psichiatrico (i casi, i pazienti ecc). La narrazione, tuttavia, tende a precipitare più volte, rendendo alcuni passaggi noiosi e poco accattivanti per il lettore.
In generale è comunque un buon libro per gli amanti del genere e considerato anche il prezzo, mi sento di consigliarne l'acquisto.
July 13, 2023
I’m a huge fan of the Hulu show based off this book and honestly found the book largely disappointing. I’d like to think this might have been from seeing the show first, but I don’t think that is it. The story moved slow and a lot of the scenes didn’t feel particularly significant nor gave us much idea what the characters were like and why we should feel invested in them. There was a period toward the end in which the pace picked up and the book became a lot more enjoyable.
Honestly, I’d skip the book and just watch the show. It’s great.
Honestly, I’d skip the book and just watch the show. It’s great.
March 8, 2018
I thought this was an interesting book and very readable. I read all the other Kem Nunn books quite a few years ago and thought Pomona Queen and Tapping the Source were excellent. This is a little different with the character of Dr Eldon Chance-a man who makes successive awful decisions but remains, somehow very likeable. The plot develops well and has some great characters, such as Big D and all in all I think, pretty good.
June 25, 2025
Watched the tv show adaption first, as I’m the biggest fan of hugh laurie ever, and I absolutely LOVED it.
the writing of the book was not my cup of tea. It felt too much for me, the sentences being a paragraph long and the amount of details often overstimulated me, but the plot line and story was just great.
the writing of the book was not my cup of tea. It felt too much for me, the sentences being a paragraph long and the amount of details often overstimulated me, but the plot line and story was just great.
March 25, 2022
Love me some SF psycho thrills.
Audio had a great reader - and Big D is a great character. Dr. Chance, not so much.
Audio had a great reader - and Big D is a great character. Dr. Chance, not so much.
December 30, 2014
I have to admit, I have this morbid fascination with books about psychopaths and serial killers. The blurb on this book is really intriguing and fascinating and that's what made me request the title from Netgalley the moment I was done reading it.
Prior to this I was not aware of the author and perhaps wouldn't have requested the title based on that, had it not been for his association with SOA. Now it doesn't seem like a very prudent decision.
I have lots of grievances with this book the foremost being that I simply could not connect with its protagonist Dr. Eldon Chance, I couldn't even like him much to be honest. I get it his life is in for a toss, at age 49 he is heading for a divorce from his wife of two decades who has traded him for a younger model. A divorce which is costing him literally even the clothes on his back since he just doesn't have to bear expenses of his lawyer, but that of his wife' as well not to mention pay her alimony and child support. But he is such a dull character that I couldn't find myself empathizing with him at any point nor could he arouse the least bit of sympathy within me.
My next grievance would be the crazy long sentences seriously, it took me three reads to grasp some paragraphs at the least. Not to mention that I couldn't grasp things like De Clerembault Syndrome, Axioms and the Banach-Taraski paradox. And I was loathe to rely on Google and Wikipedia, everytime things like these cropped up. When a book makes me search for a thing or two I have no idea of it is interesting, amazing even to learn new things. When a book makes me want to abandon it and rather surf mindless memes on the net instead I know its beyond my capability as a reader to go on with it, but I did with much reluctance on my part and ended up with a massive headache and not the slight bit of understanding of the plot of this novel.
When I had requested Chance, I was hoping it would be the kind of crazy ride Gone Girl was, when I was done with it, I could barely remember half of the things I read and was just in pursuit of the strongest coffee along with 2 tablets of Ibuprofen.
I in all honesty cannot recommend this title to anyone.
This title was provided to be by Netgalley via Scribner in exchange for an honest review.
This review can also be found at My Blog
Prior to this I was not aware of the author and perhaps wouldn't have requested the title based on that, had it not been for his association with SOA. Now it doesn't seem like a very prudent decision.
I have lots of grievances with this book the foremost being that I simply could not connect with its protagonist Dr. Eldon Chance, I couldn't even like him much to be honest. I get it his life is in for a toss, at age 49 he is heading for a divorce from his wife of two decades who has traded him for a younger model. A divorce which is costing him literally even the clothes on his back since he just doesn't have to bear expenses of his lawyer, but that of his wife' as well not to mention pay her alimony and child support. But he is such a dull character that I couldn't find myself empathizing with him at any point nor could he arouse the least bit of sympathy within me.
My next grievance would be the crazy long sentences seriously, it took me three reads to grasp some paragraphs at the least. Not to mention that I couldn't grasp things like De Clerembault Syndrome, Axioms and the Banach-Taraski paradox. And I was loathe to rely on Google and Wikipedia, everytime things like these cropped up. When a book makes me search for a thing or two I have no idea of it is interesting, amazing even to learn new things. When a book makes me want to abandon it and rather surf mindless memes on the net instead I know its beyond my capability as a reader to go on with it, but I did with much reluctance on my part and ended up with a massive headache and not the slight bit of understanding of the plot of this novel.
When I had requested Chance, I was hoping it would be the kind of crazy ride Gone Girl was, when I was done with it, I could barely remember half of the things I read and was just in pursuit of the strongest coffee along with 2 tablets of Ibuprofen.
I in all honesty cannot recommend this title to anyone.
This title was provided to be by Netgalley via Scribner in exchange for an honest review.
This review can also be found at My Blog
June 7, 2014
I've stayed a fan of Nunn's through his shakier works, but this new novel is a real challenge. It's as if he has literally forgotten how to write. Never a master of believable or well-structured plot, here he loses control of style and character as well, so what remains is a something like a Dean Koontz/Stephen King piece, minus the usually focused premise, but plus the occasional turn of memorable phrase.
'Chance' opens with a setting, character, and theme quite removed from Nunn's typical fare, though it quickly becomes the same old descent into violent underground madness. But that setting is neither believable not a great idea in itself; who, in 2014, writes a noir/crime tale carried by multiple personality disorder, hallucinations, etc? Oy.
'Chance' opens with a setting, character, and theme quite removed from Nunn's typical fare, though it quickly becomes the same old descent into violent underground madness. But that setting is neither believable not a great idea in itself; who, in 2014, writes a noir/crime tale carried by multiple personality disorder, hallucinations, etc? Oy.
Read
May 5, 2021I read it because of the TV series that was mildly interesting because of Hugh Laurie. I found TV Chance problematic. The character was a psychoanalyst and supposedly smart, but he did a bunch of dumb things. In the book Chance, the PA, is not quite so dumb but still lead by his penis and prone to thinking he is better off than he really is.
All in all, the book was more believable than the TV series and closed a number of loopholes the series had opened.
The writing in the book is a combination of good, fast-paced and clunky. I found myself rereading sections of prose because they didn't quite make sense. I realized that Nunn was writing as he might speak. I could work it out, but better writing always helps.
All in all, the book was more believable than the TV series and closed a number of loopholes the series had opened.
The writing in the book is a combination of good, fast-paced and clunky. I found myself rereading sections of prose because they didn't quite make sense. I realized that Nunn was writing as he might speak. I could work it out, but better writing always helps.
February 10, 2017
How can we follow a boring, crazed-ass lead when we don't understand anything that leads his actions? Even putting all my feelings and anger aside, I couldn't get through the stiff writing and cliche characters. Only picked it up because Hugh Laurie has been cast as the star of an upcoming tv production based on the book. I can see that being done well, oddly enough. Hugh has facial expressions. Those will be easier to read than this damn thing.
April 8, 2014
This is really 2 1/2 stars. I love this authors books, or I did until this one. I think the author has been writing for TV too much lately. This book is choppy throughout loaded with unneeded detail, drifts away from the story and has very little dialogue between the characters. The story, what little there is of one, is amateurish and easy to see how it will play out. Not a good book at all.
September 17, 2016
This was a fantastic psychological thriller and whodunit. I enjoyed it way more than I expected.
I bought it because my book club was reading it only I didn't finish the book in time and had a conflict so couldn't attend the book club meeting.
But I sure am glad I read it. Nice twist during the climax, and the ending was awesome.
Highly recommended!
I bought it because my book club was reading it only I didn't finish the book in time and had a conflict so couldn't attend the book club meeting.
But I sure am glad I read it. Nice twist during the climax, and the ending was awesome.
Highly recommended!
February 10, 2014
I initially rated this after reading an e-galley. Substantial changes were made for the final copy.
February 14, 2016
Soon to be a new television series starring Hugh Laurie! Read my full book review and look at the upcoming show here:
http://everythingnoir.com/2016/02/14/...
http://everythingnoir.com/2016/02/14/...
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