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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Richard Russo--in his first stand-alone novel in a decade--comes a new revelation: a gripping story about the abiding yet complex power of friendship.
One beautiful September day, three sixty-six-year-old men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the sixties. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today--Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971. Now, forty-four years later, as this new weekend unfolds, three lives and that of a significant other are displayed in their entirety while the distant past confounds the present like a relentless squall of surprise and discovery. Shot through with Russo's trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are . . . also introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader's heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga of how friendship's bonds are every bit as constricting and rewarding as those of family or any other community.
For both longtime fans and lucky newcomers, Chances Are . . . is a stunning demonstration of a highly acclaimed author deepening and expanding his remarkable achievement.
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Richard Russo--in his first stand-alone novel in a decade--comes a new revelation: a gripping story about the abiding yet complex power of friendship.
One beautiful September day, three sixty-six-year-old men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the sixties. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today--Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971. Now, forty-four years later, as this new weekend unfolds, three lives and that of a significant other are displayed in their entirety while the distant past confounds the present like a relentless squall of surprise and discovery. Shot through with Russo's trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are . . . also introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader's heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga of how friendship's bonds are every bit as constricting and rewarding as those of family or any other community.
For both longtime fans and lucky newcomers, Chances Are . . . is a stunning demonstration of a highly acclaimed author deepening and expanding his remarkable achievement.
374 pages, Unbound
First published July 30, 2019
3580 people are currently reading
1843 people want to read
About the author
Richard Russo
64 books4,791 followersRICHARD RUSSO is the author of seven previous novels; two collections of stories; and Elsewhere, a memoir. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 523 reviews
April 29, 2019
Over forty years have passed since these three men met during the sixties in college, and now that they’ve reached their sixties, they’ve gathered together on Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend. As we hear their stories, and know what secrets they are holding, keeping them to themselves, there is another story that slowly starts to be unveiled, as well.
Revisiting the early years of the war in Vietnam, they reflect back on the night of the first draft lottery, sitting around a tiny black and white television screen, with Mickey’s birthday coming up first, at which point the others begin singing ‘Oh, Canada.” The next birthday among them to come up was Lincoln’s, and then much later, Teddy’s. As they slowly drift out of the house, lost in their own personal reflections on luck, good and bad, they notice Jacy, the spirited, carefree girl from a privileged family that they all loved. They were all in love with her during those years, waiting for them, and she’s standing, waiting for them, for their news. When they see her wrap her arms around Mickey when she hears his news, all of his buddies still in disbelief over his bad luck with the lottery, now only feel envy in this moment.
Standing in their old haunts, thoughts drift back, memories of those years when they were in college and wonder what has become of Jacy, the girl who stole all their hearts, and in truth, a part still belongs to her. No longer the young men they were then, they have changed physically along with their years, but are also no longer the carefree, optimistic youths they were then. They are responsible men, with responsible jobs, for the most part. Lincoln is a commercial real-estate broker, Teddy is a small-press publisher, only Mickey lives close by, still living his life as a musician - after his return from Canada. Despite the years, they don’t feel all that different from all those years ago, especially when they’re here, together, like this. But step away from each other, and perspective gives them a new view. Health concerns factor in, limitations they didn’t have so many years ago.
But, still, they question: where is Jacy, and why isn’t she there, with them? As they begin to try to find the answer to this, they encounter a seemingly endless series of dead ends. That doesn’t seem to stop the search, or conjecturing on possibilities, but they can’t stop picturing her in these places they wandered through together in their past.
Russo excels at creating a strong sense of this place and time, and these ordinary, everyday characters. He seems to conjure them fully formed, all of their quirks and eccentricities on display, so that you can picture them doing some of the things they do, and you feel as if you know them, as though you’ve never not known them.
Pub Date: 30 Jul 2019
Many thanks to the ARC provided by my BookAngel
Revisiting the early years of the war in Vietnam, they reflect back on the night of the first draft lottery, sitting around a tiny black and white television screen, with Mickey’s birthday coming up first, at which point the others begin singing ‘Oh, Canada.” The next birthday among them to come up was Lincoln’s, and then much later, Teddy’s. As they slowly drift out of the house, lost in their own personal reflections on luck, good and bad, they notice Jacy, the spirited, carefree girl from a privileged family that they all loved. They were all in love with her during those years, waiting for them, and she’s standing, waiting for them, for their news. When they see her wrap her arms around Mickey when she hears his news, all of his buddies still in disbelief over his bad luck with the lottery, now only feel envy in this moment.
Standing in their old haunts, thoughts drift back, memories of those years when they were in college and wonder what has become of Jacy, the girl who stole all their hearts, and in truth, a part still belongs to her. No longer the young men they were then, they have changed physically along with their years, but are also no longer the carefree, optimistic youths they were then. They are responsible men, with responsible jobs, for the most part. Lincoln is a commercial real-estate broker, Teddy is a small-press publisher, only Mickey lives close by, still living his life as a musician - after his return from Canada. Despite the years, they don’t feel all that different from all those years ago, especially when they’re here, together, like this. But step away from each other, and perspective gives them a new view. Health concerns factor in, limitations they didn’t have so many years ago.
But, still, they question: where is Jacy, and why isn’t she there, with them? As they begin to try to find the answer to this, they encounter a seemingly endless series of dead ends. That doesn’t seem to stop the search, or conjecturing on possibilities, but they can’t stop picturing her in these places they wandered through together in their past.
Russo excels at creating a strong sense of this place and time, and these ordinary, everyday characters. He seems to conjure them fully formed, all of their quirks and eccentricities on display, so that you can picture them doing some of the things they do, and you feel as if you know them, as though you’ve never not known them.
Pub Date: 30 Jul 2019
Many thanks to the ARC provided by my BookAngel
December 11, 2020
4.5★
“From their freshman year at Minerva, Mickey’s ability to put things in perspective had always been his greatest gift. Lincoln and Teddy were both prone to taking life too seriously, so Mickey provided a natural antidote to their brooding. And how bad could the world be if he was in it?”
This is that kind of story. It’s a very American story, true to its time and those boys. They met in in their late teens and stayed friends – distant friends as they drifted apart over the decades – and at sixty-six, Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey have a reunion at Chilmark, on Martha’s Vineyard, the summer playground of the (very) rich and (very) famous, off the coast of Massachusetts.
The author distinguishes between the characters who come from old, east coast money and those who’ve grown up in comfortable, more modest (most would say ‘more normal’) circumstances. As Russo puts it, so succinctly, so perfectly:
“People for whom summer wasn’t a verb.”
These boys grew up not using “summer” as a verb. Back in the day, they had all been lowly “hashers” at a sorority, where the girls were posh while they were “slinging hash” (serving food).
They were friends with many of the girls, but it was Jacy Calloway they were all not-so-secretly in love with. They were a tightknit foursome, behaving more like the Four Musketeers than potential romantic partners. But when the boys sat and watched the Vietnam birthday draft, Jacy was distraught that one of ‘her’ boys drew number nine and would definitely have to go.
The four of them decided to have a last weekend holiday at the Chilmark house before they would go their separate ways as adults. They talk about everything and nothing. They try to convince Mickey to escape the draft by going to Canada. They get drunk and start crooning to what they all think of as a corny Johnny Mathis song “Chances Are.” Teddy thinks about it, as he’s joining in.
“Why abandon hope in the face of possibility?
There on the deck, pleasantly drunk, they seemed to have found something they each could agree on: that ‘chances were their chances were . . . awfully good.’ Whether the sentiment was true or—like the world they were taking possession of—a bright, shining lie seemed, right then, beside the point.”
The next morning, the boys wake up to a good-bye note left on the table. Now, the memory is:
“Jacy. Vanished from this very island. Memorial Day weekend, 1971.”
Russo gives us everyone’s background so well and so thoroughly that I never had trouble remembering who was spoiled or neglected or abused. They were such individuals, that I wanted to go shake sense into their parents, except of course, in this story, the ‘boys’ are now 66-year-old men, so I’m a little late.
“‘The thing to understand about your father,’ Lincoln’s mother had once explained when he was in high school, ‘is that you always have a choice. You can do things his way, or you can wish you had.’”
Lincoln learned things about the parents he thought he knew.
“The solid earth beneath his feet had turned to sand, and his parents, the two most familiar people in his life, into strangers. In time he would regain his footing, but he would never again entirely trust it.”
Before this last reunion, Lincoln thinks about then and now and how to greet his old friends.
“Probably not a bad idea to give Vietnam a conversational miss, as well. The war had been over for decades, except not really, not for men their age. It had been their war, whether or not they’d served.”
I thoroughly enjoyed how these men tried to maintain their images of each other from decades ago in spite of knowing how much they’d all changed. They are not the boys they were, and yet they are. They have mellowed, but it doesn’t take much to spark them up again. They reminisce, especially about singing “Chances Are”.
There’s a lot they don’t know about each other and Jacy, and I was absorbed in finding it out myself. I felt these were people I could have known, which made it particularly interesting. Whether it will hold the interest of readers who aren’t as familiar with this part of America, I don’t know.
“From their freshman year at Minerva, Mickey’s ability to put things in perspective had always been his greatest gift. Lincoln and Teddy were both prone to taking life too seriously, so Mickey provided a natural antidote to their brooding. And how bad could the world be if he was in it?”
This is that kind of story. It’s a very American story, true to its time and those boys. They met in in their late teens and stayed friends – distant friends as they drifted apart over the decades – and at sixty-six, Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey have a reunion at Chilmark, on Martha’s Vineyard, the summer playground of the (very) rich and (very) famous, off the coast of Massachusetts.
The author distinguishes between the characters who come from old, east coast money and those who’ve grown up in comfortable, more modest (most would say ‘more normal’) circumstances. As Russo puts it, so succinctly, so perfectly:
“People for whom summer wasn’t a verb.”
These boys grew up not using “summer” as a verb. Back in the day, they had all been lowly “hashers” at a sorority, where the girls were posh while they were “slinging hash” (serving food).
They were friends with many of the girls, but it was Jacy Calloway they were all not-so-secretly in love with. They were a tightknit foursome, behaving more like the Four Musketeers than potential romantic partners. But when the boys sat and watched the Vietnam birthday draft, Jacy was distraught that one of ‘her’ boys drew number nine and would definitely have to go.
The four of them decided to have a last weekend holiday at the Chilmark house before they would go their separate ways as adults. They talk about everything and nothing. They try to convince Mickey to escape the draft by going to Canada. They get drunk and start crooning to what they all think of as a corny Johnny Mathis song “Chances Are.” Teddy thinks about it, as he’s joining in.
“Why abandon hope in the face of possibility?
There on the deck, pleasantly drunk, they seemed to have found something they each could agree on: that ‘chances were their chances were . . . awfully good.’ Whether the sentiment was true or—like the world they were taking possession of—a bright, shining lie seemed, right then, beside the point.”
The next morning, the boys wake up to a good-bye note left on the table. Now, the memory is:
“Jacy. Vanished from this very island. Memorial Day weekend, 1971.”
Russo gives us everyone’s background so well and so thoroughly that I never had trouble remembering who was spoiled or neglected or abused. They were such individuals, that I wanted to go shake sense into their parents, except of course, in this story, the ‘boys’ are now 66-year-old men, so I’m a little late.
“‘The thing to understand about your father,’ Lincoln’s mother had once explained when he was in high school, ‘is that you always have a choice. You can do things his way, or you can wish you had.’”
Lincoln learned things about the parents he thought he knew.
“The solid earth beneath his feet had turned to sand, and his parents, the two most familiar people in his life, into strangers. In time he would regain his footing, but he would never again entirely trust it.”
Before this last reunion, Lincoln thinks about then and now and how to greet his old friends.
“Probably not a bad idea to give Vietnam a conversational miss, as well. The war had been over for decades, except not really, not for men their age. It had been their war, whether or not they’d served.”
I thoroughly enjoyed how these men tried to maintain their images of each other from decades ago in spite of knowing how much they’d all changed. They are not the boys they were, and yet they are. They have mellowed, but it doesn’t take much to spark them up again. They reminisce, especially about singing “Chances Are”.
There’s a lot they don’t know about each other and Jacy, and I was absorbed in finding it out myself. I felt these were people I could have known, which made it particularly interesting. Whether it will hold the interest of readers who aren’t as familiar with this part of America, I don’t know.
August 14, 2020
Chances Are ... is only the third Russo novel I read.
It's about three sixty-six year old men who became friends while attending a liberal arts college in the late 1960s. The three of them are from different parts of the US, have different socio-economic backgrounds and have different interests and personalities. Somehow they became the three musketeers - "all for one and one for all". They did have one thing in common - all three were in love with Jacy, but since she was engaged to be married to someone else, none of them acted on their infatuation, so they were just good friends.
Life took them to different locations and they had different trajectories. Despite good intentions, they didn't keep in touch as much as they promised they would.
The three of them manage to get together to Lincoln's house in Martha Vineyard. The last time they were all there was in the summer of 1971, following their graduation. Jacy was there with them as well. It was also the last time they saw Jacy, who was not heard from since 1971. Being in that house together brings back memories and raises more questions about Jacy's fate, which accounts for the mystery-suspense element of this novel.
This was another enjoyable novel. Russo is brilliant at creating realistic characters and making one care about them.
It's about three sixty-six year old men who became friends while attending a liberal arts college in the late 1960s. The three of them are from different parts of the US, have different socio-economic backgrounds and have different interests and personalities. Somehow they became the three musketeers - "all for one and one for all". They did have one thing in common - all three were in love with Jacy, but since she was engaged to be married to someone else, none of them acted on their infatuation, so they were just good friends.
Life took them to different locations and they had different trajectories. Despite good intentions, they didn't keep in touch as much as they promised they would.
The three of them manage to get together to Lincoln's house in Martha Vineyard. The last time they were all there was in the summer of 1971, following their graduation. Jacy was there with them as well. It was also the last time they saw Jacy, who was not heard from since 1971. Being in that house together brings back memories and raises more questions about Jacy's fate, which accounts for the mystery-suspense element of this novel.
This was another enjoyable novel. Russo is brilliant at creating realistic characters and making one care about them.
November 13, 2019
4 stars
This author is a man who puts together a puzzle with each book he writes. He gives you the border pieces in a rich story foundation. Then once you have that basis put together he fills in the picture with vividly colored characters and a well interconnected plot. This book was no exception.
Three young men - all from middle class to economically stressed families - meet at college. They take on a fourth 'Musketeer' - a rich girl. All three boys are in love with her. Once they graduate they have one final hoorah, a weekend on Martha's Vineyard. But Jacy - the rich girl - goes missing.
Forty years later the 3 men meet again, at the same Martha's Vineyard house. Jacy has never been seen in that forty years and it is a mystery they would like to solve. She has been that missing puzzle piece. It is at this meeting that the truth comes out. Not what you expect, nor see coming, but it explains many things that then fit together.
Russo is an author that should top everyone's list. If you haven't read this one, there are pieces missing in your literary puzzle box.
This author is a man who puts together a puzzle with each book he writes. He gives you the border pieces in a rich story foundation. Then once you have that basis put together he fills in the picture with vividly colored characters and a well interconnected plot. This book was no exception.
Three young men - all from middle class to economically stressed families - meet at college. They take on a fourth 'Musketeer' - a rich girl. All three boys are in love with her. Once they graduate they have one final hoorah, a weekend on Martha's Vineyard. But Jacy - the rich girl - goes missing.
Forty years later the 3 men meet again, at the same Martha's Vineyard house. Jacy has never been seen in that forty years and it is a mystery they would like to solve. She has been that missing puzzle piece. It is at this meeting that the truth comes out. Not what you expect, nor see coming, but it explains many things that then fit together.
Russo is an author that should top everyone's list. If you haven't read this one, there are pieces missing in your literary puzzle box.
February 10, 2020
How young they’d all been. How foolish. What would Jacy think if she could see them now? Lincoln wondered. Three goddamn old men.
The three musketeers have a reunion not after twenty years, but after four decades and some. Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey, three young men from lower middle-class backgrounds have the chance to attend an exclusive college on the East Coast. They study humanities / art, they make ends meet by serving as hashers (kitchen aids) for a posh sorority house, they are full of plans for the future. Chances are, they each will make a splash on the world’s canvas.
But the year is 1969, and a compulsory draft has been put into law, providing fresh meat for the Vietnam bloody mill. In a single night, all that bright future, all those numerous chances, can come to naught.
They’d begun seeing things differently back in 1969, in the Theta houses’ hasher room, where on a small TV they’d learned just how alone they really were in the world.
Forty-four years later, the three friends are still wondering how their futures have been blown to pieces by the winds of fate. The fulcrum seems to be the last weekend they spent together on Martha’s Vineyard, in a vacation house owned by Lincoln’s mother.
Clearly, to her the Chilmark house wasn’t just wood and glass and shingle. It represented a time when her parents were still alive, when she felt happy and safe in a world they’d created
The house may represent, like it did for the mother, the last place where she has known true happiness, or the loss of innocence, or, in a darker shade of adverse fate, the place where a murder has been committed. Because during that final weekend after graduation, the fourth musketeer, their d’Artagnan, their muse, the girl all three of them were hopelessly in love with, was seen for the last time. Nobody knows why she disappeared without leaving any note, why nobody has seen her since. Jacy was the rebel against the establishment that inspired them, the free spirit who haunted their dreams, the beautiful girl who kissed all three of them just because she could. She’s the one who could make three men who prided themselves on their taste in rock music slow-dance to the words of a foreign crooner (Johnny Matis):
‘Chances are ‘cause I wear that silly grin,
the moment you come into view.
Chances are you think that I’m in love with you.’
But what did Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey really know about Jacy? Did they even bother to find out? Why didn’t they search harder for the girl after she disappeared? Forty-four years is a lot of time to procrastinate. As each old man looks back through the distorted lens of memory at his own youth, the specter of the missing girl grows bigger, casts a deeper shadow, poses more difficult questions to the men who ultimately failed her.
“What’s the matter with her?”
“Us is my impression,” Teddy said, recalling what she’d said earlier about everything being fucked up. “Men. We ignore women when they’re right and we start wars and generally screw things up.”
I saw in a different review of Russo’s typical characters that he is considered one of the best authors to focus on male stress in a modern world where their traditional roles as providers for the family and natural leaders of world affairs are challenged on a daily basis. It strikes me as a valid observation, as much as his preference for writing about small communities left behind by economic booms, or about the importance of family ties or the availability of second chances even for the most unlucky losers. In the present story, we get to know the girl Jacy only through the impression she made on her three musketeers, but we get to find out a lot more about each boy, through extended flashbacks, starting with their family backgrounds (are we destined to become our parents, no matter how hard we rebelled against them in adolescence?), through their college years and, finally, in their old age, looking back at the road that brought them back to the house on Martha’s Vineyard. Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey have managed, each in his own way, to become a fully paid member of the ‘We Don’t Do Right by Girls Club’, as Russo likes to call it here.
Teddy clearly defined success differently, and it never would’ve occurred to Mickey to define it in the first place.
Lincoln, the boy who grew up with a bullying father and a meek mother in a moderately wealthy house from a small town in Nevada, is the avatar of Athos, the serious guy from the Dumas swashbuckling saga. He made the right choices, renounced his foolish dreams, and settled down with a rich girl and a safe career in real estate, returning to the Western desert of his childhood. For him success could be defined as financial and social / family recognition. But is he truthful about the state of his affairs, or about his still ardent feelings about the missing Jacy?
The things we keep secret tend to be right at the center of who we are.
Teddy, the avatar of spiritual Aramis, grew up in the Midwest in a heavily repressed household, where his parents seem more interested in their careers as teachers and in their intellectual pursuits than in communicating with their son. An early sporting accident has made Teddy even more introverted, and may have even led him to seek a religious education, despite being brought up in an atheist environment. He has his own heavy baggage to carry, most dangerous of which is an early onset of crippling depression. He ended up as a small press publisher for a religious college. For Teddy, success in life could be defined as intellectual recognition.
By behaving as if the only way for souls to touch was through muscle and tissue and blood, he’d denied them both the intimacy of sharing, honesty and understanding.
Teddy is still single, apparently by choice, still prone to depression, still haunted by the memory of his rejection of Jacy that one time when she offered herself to him.
Joy, Teddy thought. The one thing his own even keel did not permit. For him such bliss led to euphoria, which inevitably pivoted, plunging headlong into depression and despair. Had his parents ever experienced real joy? Or had they, too had to guard themselves against emotional extremes?
Mickey, the avatar of Porthos, is the extrovert of the group, still pursuing a career in rock music, driving a Harley Davidson, drinking strong spirits, big and loud and strong. Yet why is Mickey the only one of the friends who is not having flashbacks to their college years? What is he hiding behind his lust for life persona? He grew up in a large, loud, low income blue collar family from Jersey, he liked to hide in the kitchen washing dishes while his friends served the beautiful college girls their dinner in the main room, he was the first name to be drawn in the draft lottery, convinced he must do his duty for the country that welcomed his immigrant family. Yet Mickey had finally decided to escape to Canada instead of going before the draft board. What made him change his mind?
Well, I’m not gonna tell you, folks! Mr. Russo does it so much better than me. The mystery of the missing Jacy is ultimately less important than the map of the human hearts that still links the three old men, despite going their separate ways for more than four decades
They were sixty-six now, far too old to convince themselves that their chances were awfully good, that the world gave the tiniest little fuck about their hopes and dreams, assuming they had any left.
The older we get, the less chances we have to change the course of our lives. All those dreams we had in college, all those relationships we treated so casually, have now become preciously rare, if not forever lost to illness or bad fortune. What is left to us then in the last decades of our stay on this planet? Resignation? Crying over spilt milk? Class reunions where we try to remember how we looked back then?
But this was the wrong end of the telescope. Okay, sure, maybe looking at things through the proper end also resulted in distortion by making distant things seem much closer than they really were, but at least you were looking in the direction your life was heading. It wasn’t in fact possible to strip life of its clutter for the simple reason that life was clutter.
And here comes my final reason I keep coming back to Richard Russo’s stories: nothing is final while you still breathe, while you still have family or friends around you. You can define success in life by the size of your house or by your bank account, by the studies you published or by the adventures you had. Or you can look around you and see what kind of people know and care about you.
Maybe knowledge was overrated. [...] The friends of his youth? He loved them, too. Still. Anyway. In spite of. Exactly how he himself had always hoped to be loved. The way everyone hopes to be.
Sure, life it’s hard, and then you die. But it’s still a better option than the alternative.
What were people supposed to do when confronted with a world that couldn’t care less whether they lived or died? Cower? Genuflect? If there was a God, he had to be choking with laughter. Stack the deck against them, and instead of blaming him, these damn fools that he’d created, supposedly in his own image, would rather blame themselves.
>>><<<>>><<<
Chances are, if you are a fan of Russo, you will love his latest story.
Chances are, if you are not familiar yet with his works, you will become a fan after reading this.
Chances are, if you are in the market for an epiphany, for a way to reconcile the meanness of the world with its inherent beauty, such insights can come at any age, from any direction. All you need is to keep an open mind and, like Teddy observes at one point in the proceedings, you’re supposed to cut everybody some slack
The three musketeers have a reunion not after twenty years, but after four decades and some. Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey, three young men from lower middle-class backgrounds have the chance to attend an exclusive college on the East Coast. They study humanities / art, they make ends meet by serving as hashers (kitchen aids) for a posh sorority house, they are full of plans for the future. Chances are, they each will make a splash on the world’s canvas.
But the year is 1969, and a compulsory draft has been put into law, providing fresh meat for the Vietnam bloody mill. In a single night, all that bright future, all those numerous chances, can come to naught.
They’d begun seeing things differently back in 1969, in the Theta houses’ hasher room, where on a small TV they’d learned just how alone they really were in the world.
Forty-four years later, the three friends are still wondering how their futures have been blown to pieces by the winds of fate. The fulcrum seems to be the last weekend they spent together on Martha’s Vineyard, in a vacation house owned by Lincoln’s mother.
Clearly, to her the Chilmark house wasn’t just wood and glass and shingle. It represented a time when her parents were still alive, when she felt happy and safe in a world they’d created
The house may represent, like it did for the mother, the last place where she has known true happiness, or the loss of innocence, or, in a darker shade of adverse fate, the place where a murder has been committed. Because during that final weekend after graduation, the fourth musketeer, their d’Artagnan, their muse, the girl all three of them were hopelessly in love with, was seen for the last time. Nobody knows why she disappeared without leaving any note, why nobody has seen her since. Jacy was the rebel against the establishment that inspired them, the free spirit who haunted their dreams, the beautiful girl who kissed all three of them just because she could. She’s the one who could make three men who prided themselves on their taste in rock music slow-dance to the words of a foreign crooner (Johnny Matis):
‘Chances are ‘cause I wear that silly grin,
the moment you come into view.
Chances are you think that I’m in love with you.’
But what did Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey really know about Jacy? Did they even bother to find out? Why didn’t they search harder for the girl after she disappeared? Forty-four years is a lot of time to procrastinate. As each old man looks back through the distorted lens of memory at his own youth, the specter of the missing girl grows bigger, casts a deeper shadow, poses more difficult questions to the men who ultimately failed her.
“What’s the matter with her?”
“Us is my impression,” Teddy said, recalling what she’d said earlier about everything being fucked up. “Men. We ignore women when they’re right and we start wars and generally screw things up.”
I saw in a different review of Russo’s typical characters that he is considered one of the best authors to focus on male stress in a modern world where their traditional roles as providers for the family and natural leaders of world affairs are challenged on a daily basis. It strikes me as a valid observation, as much as his preference for writing about small communities left behind by economic booms, or about the importance of family ties or the availability of second chances even for the most unlucky losers. In the present story, we get to know the girl Jacy only through the impression she made on her three musketeers, but we get to find out a lot more about each boy, through extended flashbacks, starting with their family backgrounds (are we destined to become our parents, no matter how hard we rebelled against them in adolescence?), through their college years and, finally, in their old age, looking back at the road that brought them back to the house on Martha’s Vineyard. Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey have managed, each in his own way, to become a fully paid member of the ‘We Don’t Do Right by Girls Club’, as Russo likes to call it here.
Teddy clearly defined success differently, and it never would’ve occurred to Mickey to define it in the first place.
Lincoln, the boy who grew up with a bullying father and a meek mother in a moderately wealthy house from a small town in Nevada, is the avatar of Athos, the serious guy from the Dumas swashbuckling saga. He made the right choices, renounced his foolish dreams, and settled down with a rich girl and a safe career in real estate, returning to the Western desert of his childhood. For him success could be defined as financial and social / family recognition. But is he truthful about the state of his affairs, or about his still ardent feelings about the missing Jacy?
The things we keep secret tend to be right at the center of who we are.
Teddy, the avatar of spiritual Aramis, grew up in the Midwest in a heavily repressed household, where his parents seem more interested in their careers as teachers and in their intellectual pursuits than in communicating with their son. An early sporting accident has made Teddy even more introverted, and may have even led him to seek a religious education, despite being brought up in an atheist environment. He has his own heavy baggage to carry, most dangerous of which is an early onset of crippling depression. He ended up as a small press publisher for a religious college. For Teddy, success in life could be defined as intellectual recognition.
By behaving as if the only way for souls to touch was through muscle and tissue and blood, he’d denied them both the intimacy of sharing, honesty and understanding.
Teddy is still single, apparently by choice, still prone to depression, still haunted by the memory of his rejection of Jacy that one time when she offered herself to him.
Joy, Teddy thought. The one thing his own even keel did not permit. For him such bliss led to euphoria, which inevitably pivoted, plunging headlong into depression and despair. Had his parents ever experienced real joy? Or had they, too had to guard themselves against emotional extremes?
Mickey, the avatar of Porthos, is the extrovert of the group, still pursuing a career in rock music, driving a Harley Davidson, drinking strong spirits, big and loud and strong. Yet why is Mickey the only one of the friends who is not having flashbacks to their college years? What is he hiding behind his lust for life persona? He grew up in a large, loud, low income blue collar family from Jersey, he liked to hide in the kitchen washing dishes while his friends served the beautiful college girls their dinner in the main room, he was the first name to be drawn in the draft lottery, convinced he must do his duty for the country that welcomed his immigrant family. Yet Mickey had finally decided to escape to Canada instead of going before the draft board. What made him change his mind?
Well, I’m not gonna tell you, folks! Mr. Russo does it so much better than me. The mystery of the missing Jacy is ultimately less important than the map of the human hearts that still links the three old men, despite going their separate ways for more than four decades
They were sixty-six now, far too old to convince themselves that their chances were awfully good, that the world gave the tiniest little fuck about their hopes and dreams, assuming they had any left.
The older we get, the less chances we have to change the course of our lives. All those dreams we had in college, all those relationships we treated so casually, have now become preciously rare, if not forever lost to illness or bad fortune. What is left to us then in the last decades of our stay on this planet? Resignation? Crying over spilt milk? Class reunions where we try to remember how we looked back then?
But this was the wrong end of the telescope. Okay, sure, maybe looking at things through the proper end also resulted in distortion by making distant things seem much closer than they really were, but at least you were looking in the direction your life was heading. It wasn’t in fact possible to strip life of its clutter for the simple reason that life was clutter.
And here comes my final reason I keep coming back to Richard Russo’s stories: nothing is final while you still breathe, while you still have family or friends around you. You can define success in life by the size of your house or by your bank account, by the studies you published or by the adventures you had. Or you can look around you and see what kind of people know and care about you.
Maybe knowledge was overrated. [...] The friends of his youth? He loved them, too. Still. Anyway. In spite of. Exactly how he himself had always hoped to be loved. The way everyone hopes to be.
Sure, life it’s hard, and then you die. But it’s still a better option than the alternative.
What were people supposed to do when confronted with a world that couldn’t care less whether they lived or died? Cower? Genuflect? If there was a God, he had to be choking with laughter. Stack the deck against them, and instead of blaming him, these damn fools that he’d created, supposedly in his own image, would rather blame themselves.
>>><<<>>><<<
Chances are, if you are a fan of Russo, you will love his latest story.
Chances are, if you are not familiar yet with his works, you will become a fan after reading this.
Chances are, if you are in the market for an epiphany, for a way to reconcile the meanness of the world with its inherent beauty, such insights can come at any age, from any direction. All you need is to keep an open mind and, like Teddy observes at one point in the proceedings, you’re supposed to cut everybody some slack
December 28, 2020
This Richard Russo effort was a good read. It's about 3 old friends, Lincoln, Terry and Mick, who reunite after 40 years at Martha's Vineyard.
The last time these guys were together they were with a free spirited girl called Jacy, who they were all madly in love with.
These three men are all very different characters, we get to learn about each of them and their lives as the story proceeds. We also learn what happened to Jacy - which was all a bit suspenseful.
Everything in this story was believable and each character was very real. This author writes a great story, full of humanity, tragedy and comedy. I also love the way he slips in some contemporary politics.
A strong theme in this story is about the decisions we make and fate. How much control do we have in where and how we end up? A story like this made me reflect on my own life and some of the choices I've made and other events that have made my life turn in ways I had little control over. Russo is a good author for sure!
4 Stars
The last time these guys were together they were with a free spirited girl called Jacy, who they were all madly in love with.
These three men are all very different characters, we get to learn about each of them and their lives as the story proceeds. We also learn what happened to Jacy - which was all a bit suspenseful.
Everything in this story was believable and each character was very real. This author writes a great story, full of humanity, tragedy and comedy. I also love the way he slips in some contemporary politics.
A strong theme in this story is about the decisions we make and fate. How much control do we have in where and how we end up? A story like this made me reflect on my own life and some of the choices I've made and other events that have made my life turn in ways I had little control over. Russo is a good author for sure!
4 Stars
November 12, 2019
Chances Are . . . was the latest novel by Pulitzer-prize winning author Richard Russo, one of my favorite writers. Each time I read one of Russo's books, I find myself just settling in and enjoying the experience, not only for the sharp dialogue among the characters but also their internal dialogue fueled with humor and pathos. This beautiful novel is all about the meaning of enduring friendship over the years. These three men, now sixty-six years old, first met in college in the late sixties when the war in Viet Nam was at its height, as well as the protests against it. There is Lincoln, now a commercial real estate broker from Las Vegas, happily married to his college sweetheart Anita; Teddy, a small-press publisher from New York; and Mickey, the lovable rocker, now a musician and sound engineer from Cape Cod. Lincoln has invited his friends to his cottage on Martha's Vineyard (a legacy from his mother) as he is thinking about selling it. Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey celebrated their graduation in this cottage thinking of themselves always as the Three Musketeers - all for one and one for all. However, there was a fourth member of their group, Jacey, loved by each of them, but who mysteriously disappeared from Martha's Vineyard after their Memorial Day weekend, never to be heard from again. This overwhelming mystery after all of these years is still present as we learn more about Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey in this heartwarming new novel by Richard Russo.
"As they grew more confident of the lyrics, they turned, arm in arm, and serenaded the night itself, the moonlight rippling on the distant ocean. They sang as if they were still all for one and one for all and would be so forever."
"There on the deck, pleasantly drunk, they seemed to have found something each could agree on: that chances were their chances were . . . awfully good. Whether the sentiment was true or--like the world they were taking possession of--a bright, shining lie seemed, right then, beside the point."
"As they grew more confident of the lyrics, they turned, arm in arm, and serenaded the night itself, the moonlight rippling on the distant ocean. They sang as if they were still all for one and one for all and would be so forever."
"There on the deck, pleasantly drunk, they seemed to have found something each could agree on: that chances were their chances were . . . awfully good. Whether the sentiment was true or--like the world they were taking possession of--a bright, shining lie seemed, right then, beside the point."
August 16, 2019
Oh Richard Russo you break my heart with this one. I found this whodunit unbelievable and not all that interesting. It’s hard to believe it was written by the same person that wrote Empire Falls and Nobody’s Fool
Russo’s books have a lot of stereotypes and tropes and usually I find them hilarious. I don’t mind them showing up over and over in his novels. This time, not so much. I find the Christian Southern Republican stereotypes here downright offensive. Maybe his other stereotypes are just as glaring (that of academics maybe) but I just identify more with this group? I don’t know. Anyway I don’t like it. (Apparently Catholics get a pass. They can be trusted not to take seriously any of the more embarrassing teachings.)
And I don’t like Trump a bit but all the Trump griping in this book is just distracting.
And what’s with the author’s obsession with women going braless?
It could be just that I have my feelings hurt. But I don’t think so. I think this just isn’t a good book. So sad because most of the author’s other books are so great.
Russo’s books have a lot of stereotypes and tropes and usually I find them hilarious. I don’t mind them showing up over and over in his novels. This time, not so much. I find the Christian Southern Republican stereotypes here downright offensive. Maybe his other stereotypes are just as glaring (that of academics maybe) but I just identify more with this group? I don’t know. Anyway I don’t like it. (Apparently Catholics get a pass. They can be trusted not to take seriously any of the more embarrassing teachings.)
And I don’t like Trump a bit but all the Trump griping in this book is just distracting.
And what’s with the author’s obsession with women going braless?
It could be just that I have my feelings hurt. But I don’t think so. I think this just isn’t a good book. So sad because most of the author’s other books are so great.
December 22, 2020
Komt wat kabbelend op gang.
Maar eenmaal in het verhaal; liet het me niet meer los.
Mooie mix van spanning & tederheid.
En verrassende plot.
Maar eenmaal in het verhaal; liet het me niet meer los.
Mooie mix van spanning & tederheid.
En verrassende plot.
August 31, 2025
Three sixty-six-year-old men, Teddy, Lincoln, and Mickey, gather on Martha’s Vineyard for a reunion. They have been friends since their college years and spent Memorial Day weekend in the same house forty-four years ago, along with a fourth member of their group, Jacy, a young woman who disappeared afterward. Her unexplained disappearance has haunted each of the men over the years. During their reunion, they discuss what could have happened to her, and one of them pursues the issue with a local detective (now retired) who investigated the original case.
The first gathering took place during the Vietnam War, just after the Selective Service draft. Though they faced different outcomes (based on their draft numbers), they coped with their uncertain futures with the optimism of youth. The decades-later reunion portrays the men as seasoned by their life experiences. They are aging and life has not necessarily turned out the way they anticipated. The author excels at portraying the passage of time, particularly the idealistic dreams of youth and the belief that one can change the world. Looking back later, the men see themselves as falling short but still doing the best they can with what life has thrown their way.
This book is a literary mystery. The mystery of what happened to Jacy keeps the reader turning the pages, but it is not fast paced. The characters are deeply drawn and realistic. Each is depicted as a complex person with unique problems, experiences, and relationships, and the narrative details each person’s background. The tone is wistful. I found it an engrossing read and particularly enjoyed the ensemble of characters. I definitely plan to read more of Russo’s works.
The first gathering took place during the Vietnam War, just after the Selective Service draft. Though they faced different outcomes (based on their draft numbers), they coped with their uncertain futures with the optimism of youth. The decades-later reunion portrays the men as seasoned by their life experiences. They are aging and life has not necessarily turned out the way they anticipated. The author excels at portraying the passage of time, particularly the idealistic dreams of youth and the belief that one can change the world. Looking back later, the men see themselves as falling short but still doing the best they can with what life has thrown their way.
This book is a literary mystery. The mystery of what happened to Jacy keeps the reader turning the pages, but it is not fast paced. The characters are deeply drawn and realistic. Each is depicted as a complex person with unique problems, experiences, and relationships, and the narrative details each person’s background. The tone is wistful. I found it an engrossing read and particularly enjoyed the ensemble of characters. I definitely plan to read more of Russo’s works.
October 12, 2021
Do you remember the story of a bright talented girl, loved by three young people on a paradise island, in the summer of hopes of the early seventies? Their paths have diverged for decades, and now these three are returning to the same place to understand something vital for everyone, and remember their old love. Without a doubt, Richard Russo was inspired by this novel "Mamma Mia" and there is nothing wrong with that, the musical is divine, and in a world standing on the shoulders of giants, everything is intertwined and permeated with connections.
Our Last Summer
Внутри там пряталась хорошая книга
Помните историю о яркой талантливой девушке, любимой тремя молодыми людьми на райском острове, в лето надежд начала семидесятых? Пути их разошлись на десятилетия, а сейчас эти трое возвращаются в то же место, чтобы понять что-то жизненно важное для каждого, и вспомнить свою давнюю любовь. Без сомнения, Ричарда Руссо вдохновила на этот роман "Mamma Mia" и ничего в том худого, мюзикл божественный, а в мире, стоящем на плечах гигантов, все переплетено и пронизано связями.
Да и не мелодрама здесь. Немного детектива, толика слегка неуклюжего феминизма, много ностальгического ретро, а в целом хороший крепкий психологический роман. В отменном переводе, не могу этого не сказать, встреча с работой дуэта Шаши Мартынова-Максим Немцов всегда читательское удовольствие, а "Шансы есть" еще и тот случай, когда Немцов выбирает срединный путь и придерживается традиционных переводческих решений.
Итак, они приезжают, спустя сорок лет, в дом на острове Мартас-Виньярд, где так счастливо провели совместный уик-энд, отметивший окончание колледжа Минерва (почти исключительно для богатеньких деток). Почти - потому что как раз эта тройка к таким не относилась. Более-менее успешным финансовым положением могла похвастаться лишь семья Линкольна, это ему принадлежит дом, и он же лучше остальных устроен в нынешней взрослой жизни. Но и ему приходилось официанить в университетском кафе, зарабатывая на здешнюю жизнь. Сын преподавателей Тэдди и выходец из итальянской рабочей семьи Мики учились на стипендию. Все трое работали в местной столовке и были как три мушкетера: один за всех, и все за одного.
Джесси не их круга девочка. Красивая, яркая, из хорошей семьи, помолвлена с юношей еще более обеспеченным, с блестящими перспективами. Что привлекло ее в этой тройке лузеров? Поди разбери, может быть их дружба, готовность стоять друг за друга, может их откровенная рыцарская в нее влюбленность и восхищение, а может чувствовала, что здесь ее не обидят. Так или иначе, она стала их Дартаньяном. И провела с ними эти чудесные дни на острове. А потом исчезла. Сначала все думали, сбежала из-под венца и скоро появится. После уж и не знали, что подумать, а еще потом у каждого началась своя жизнь, в которой они изредка переписывались и перезванивались, и каждый помнил ее, свою золотую девочку-которая-пропала.
Так что же случилось тем летом? Гле Джесси? Какую роль сыграл в ее исчезновении один из трех друзей? За что люблю Ричарда Руссо (не в последнюю очередь) - он не оставляет своего читателя с многозначительной недосказанностью открытого финала. Разгадка будет, интересная и неожиданная. Спасибо Фантому за еще одну прекрасную книгу от классного писателя, вот бы вы еще на That Old Cape Magiс сподвиглись.
И вот когда вы в двух шагах
От груды сказочных богатств,
Он говорит вам: "Бог подаст!"
Хитрый шанс
Our Last Summer
Внутри там пряталась хорошая книга
Помните историю о яркой талантливой девушке, любимой тремя молодыми людьми на райском острове, в лето надежд начала семидесятых? Пути их разошлись на десятилетия, а сейчас эти трое возвращаются в то же место, чтобы понять что-то жизненно важное для каждого, и вспомнить свою давнюю любовь. Без сомнения, Ричарда Руссо вдохновила на этот роман "Mamma Mia" и ничего в том худого, мюзикл божественный, а в мире, стоящем на плечах гигантов, все переплетено и пронизано связями.
Да и не мелодрама здесь. Немного детектива, толика слегка неуклюжего феминизма, много ностальгического ретро, а в целом хороший крепкий психологический роман. В отменном переводе, не могу этого не сказать, встреча с работой дуэта Шаши Мартынова-Максим Немцов всегда читательское удовольствие, а "Шансы есть" еще и тот случай, когда Немцов выбирает срединный путь и придерживается традиционных переводческих решений.
Итак, они приезжают, спустя сорок лет, в дом на острове Мартас-Виньярд, где так счастливо провели совместный уик-энд, отметивший окончание колледжа Минерва (почти исключительно для богатеньких деток). Почти - потому что как раз эта тройка к таким не относилась. Более-менее успешным финансовым положением могла похвастаться лишь семья Линкольна, это ему принадлежит дом, и он же лучше остальных устроен в нынешней взрослой жизни. Но и ему приходилось официанить в университетском кафе, зарабатывая на здешнюю жизнь. Сын преподавателей Тэдди и выходец из итальянской рабочей семьи Мики учились на стипендию. Все трое работали в местной столовке и были как три мушкетера: один за всех, и все за одного.
Джесси не их круга девочка. Красивая, яркая, из хорошей семьи, помолвлена с юношей еще более обеспеченным, с блестящими перспективами. Что привлекло ее в этой тройке лузеров? Поди разбери, может быть их дружба, готовность стоять друг за друга, может их откровенная рыцарская в нее влюбленность и восхищение, а может чувствовала, что здесь ее не обидят. Так или иначе, она стала их Дартаньяном. И провела с ними эти чудесные дни на острове. А потом исчезла. Сначала все думали, сбежала из-под венца и скоро появится. После уж и не знали, что подумать, а еще потом у каждого началась своя жизнь, в которой они изредка переписывались и перезванивались, и каждый помнил ее, свою золотую девочку-которая-пропала.
Так что же случилось тем летом? Гле Джесси? Какую роль сыграл в ее исчезновении один из трех друзей? За что люблю Ричарда Руссо (не в последнюю очередь) - он не оставляет своего читателя с многозначительной недосказанностью открытого финала. Разгадка будет, интересная и неожиданная. Спасибо Фантому за еще одну прекрасную книгу от классного писателя, вот бы вы еще на That Old Cape Magiс сподвиглись.
И вот когда вы в двух шагах
От груды сказочных богатств,
Он говорит вам: "Бог подаст!"
Хитрый шанс
October 11, 2020
*** 4 ***
December 10, 2019
Richard Russo became one of my favourite authors after I read Nobody's Fool and Everybody's Fool. This one was not as entertaining or enjoyable for me, I thought it dragged a little and I wasn’t as invested in the characters or the story as much as the other two books. Also, it didn’t have the humour that really made the other two such a delight.
Set in the present but with considerable flashbacks to their early adulthood, three friends Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey are 66yo and have met up at Lincoln’s beach house for a few days. They went to college together in the early 1970s and have maintained the friendship on and off throughout the years. The three of them were all crazy about a girl called Jacy who used to hang out with them and disappeared without trace. Jacy was engaged to another man but the three of them all wondered if she was having second thoughts about the marriage. Lincoln and Teddy speculated that if only they had shown their true feelings to Jacy, she may have declared her hand. Mickey seems indifferent one way or the other but that’s just the way he is. Being back in the area where they all started their friendship brings vivid memories of Jacy and the anguish at not knowing what happened to her. I still enjoyed it to a degree and will gladly read anything by Richard Russo anytime, he’s such a quality writer. With considerable reminiscing about the Vietnam war, the draft, the music of that era and so on Chances Are the book may not appeal so much to younger age groups.
Set in the present but with considerable flashbacks to their early adulthood, three friends Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey are 66yo and have met up at Lincoln’s beach house for a few days. They went to college together in the early 1970s and have maintained the friendship on and off throughout the years. The three of them were all crazy about a girl called Jacy who used to hang out with them and disappeared without trace. Jacy was engaged to another man but the three of them all wondered if she was having second thoughts about the marriage. Lincoln and Teddy speculated that if only they had shown their true feelings to Jacy, she may have declared her hand. Mickey seems indifferent one way or the other but that’s just the way he is. Being back in the area where they all started their friendship brings vivid memories of Jacy and the anguish at not knowing what happened to her. I still enjoyed it to a degree and will gladly read anything by Richard Russo anytime, he’s such a quality writer. With considerable reminiscing about the Vietnam war, the draft, the music of that era and so on Chances Are the book may not appeal so much to younger age groups.
July 4, 2020
The silliness of the story was redeemed by the last couple of chapters.
Towards the end of this tale, one of the main characters says, "I'm only going to tell this story once," and what is disclosed afterwards made this book worth reading.
As others here have noted, Russo writes about men well and convincingly; at least, men around his age who attended the same university he did and grew up in similar circumstances. That's not a knock; I'd rather read good writing about a limited group than insincere writing about a wide-ranging population. I only wish he'd stepped back a moment and realized that elements of this book are completely ridiculous.
The book features three men in their mid-sixties who remain obsessed with a girl they met back in college (none of this is a spoiler) and we spend a great deal of time reading about hijinks at the Delta House, and how they behaved around the Thetas, and their legendary radical English professor.
Is it churlish of me to suggest that most people have moved past all this stuff by the time they're drawing social security?
And it's unfortunate, because there's a good and believable story in there somewhere. People do remember their first college sweetheart, and people do misjudge one another, with consequences that can take years or even generations to manifest. The places we lived in childhood do matter. So why saddle the story with unbelievable elements like their photographic recall of an article in the campus newspaper forty years previously?
Tantalizingly close to a good book, but only if you manage to stick it out to the end. I almost bailed out several times, which would have been a shame.
Towards the end of this tale, one of the main characters says, "I'm only going to tell this story once," and what is disclosed afterwards made this book worth reading.
As others here have noted, Russo writes about men well and convincingly; at least, men around his age who attended the same university he did and grew up in similar circumstances. That's not a knock; I'd rather read good writing about a limited group than insincere writing about a wide-ranging population. I only wish he'd stepped back a moment and realized that elements of this book are completely ridiculous.
The book features three men in their mid-sixties who remain obsessed with a girl they met back in college (none of this is a spoiler) and we spend a great deal of time reading about hijinks at the Delta House, and how they behaved around the Thetas, and their legendary radical English professor.
Is it churlish of me to suggest that most people have moved past all this stuff by the time they're drawing social security?
And it's unfortunate, because there's a good and believable story in there somewhere. People do remember their first college sweetheart, and people do misjudge one another, with consequences that can take years or even generations to manifest. The places we lived in childhood do matter. So why saddle the story with unbelievable elements like their photographic recall of an article in the campus newspaper forty years previously?
Tantalizingly close to a good book, but only if you manage to stick it out to the end. I almost bailed out several times, which would have been a shame.
June 13, 2020
*seufz*
Wie lange muss ich jetzt auf einen neuen Russo warten?
Wie lange muss ich jetzt auf einen neuen Russo warten?
November 7, 2019
(3.5) This is like the guy version of Where the Crawdads Sing, perhaps as rewritten and set in New England by John Irving. Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey met at Connecticut’s Minerva College back in the late 1960s, working in the kitchen at a sorority and nervously awaiting their Vietnam War draft numbers. They were all more than half in love with Jacy, but she disappeared in 1971 and only one of them knows the truth of what happened to her. Together again on Martha’s Vineyard in 2015, the friends are now in their mid-sixties but their dynamic hasn’t changed even if the country’s has with Trump’s star on the rise.
Most of the sections are from Lincoln’s and Teddy’s POVs, and I grew fond of Teddy, who, inspired by his love of Thomas Merton, started a small academic press called Seven Storey Books to publish popular religious works. There’s a reason he’s never married, though it’s not what you might expect. Lincoln is a real estate agent out in Arizona whose business hasn’t been the same since the financial crisis, but he’s holding steady thanks to the love of his wife, children and grandchildren. And Mickey? He’s the same crazy rocker as ever. The novel takes its title from a Johnny Mathis song and refers to a fair bit of other music – though with an unfortunate error: “Janice” Joplin! – Lincoln’s irascible father even has the amusing name of Wolfgang Amadeus Moser.
I think Russo let himself get a bit carried away with filling in Jacy’s backstory, such that things become fairly melodramatic. There’s too much plot in general for a book that’s mostly about ageing and nostalgia (“Was this what we wanted from our oldest friends? Reassurance that the world we remember so fondly still exists?”). However, male friendship is a fairly rare theme, I truly came to care about these three main characters, and this easily held my interest for large chunks on a train ride. It was only my second novel from Russo (after Empire Falls; I’ve also read his memoir), but I’m sure to read more.
Most of the sections are from Lincoln’s and Teddy’s POVs, and I grew fond of Teddy, who, inspired by his love of Thomas Merton, started a small academic press called Seven Storey Books to publish popular religious works. There’s a reason he’s never married, though it’s not what you might expect. Lincoln is a real estate agent out in Arizona whose business hasn’t been the same since the financial crisis, but he’s holding steady thanks to the love of his wife, children and grandchildren. And Mickey? He’s the same crazy rocker as ever. The novel takes its title from a Johnny Mathis song and refers to a fair bit of other music – though with an unfortunate error: “Janice” Joplin! – Lincoln’s irascible father even has the amusing name of Wolfgang Amadeus Moser.
I think Russo let himself get a bit carried away with filling in Jacy’s backstory, such that things become fairly melodramatic. There’s too much plot in general for a book that’s mostly about ageing and nostalgia (“Was this what we wanted from our oldest friends? Reassurance that the world we remember so fondly still exists?”). However, male friendship is a fairly rare theme, I truly came to care about these three main characters, and this easily held my interest for large chunks on a train ride. It was only my second novel from Russo (after Empire Falls; I’ve also read his memoir), but I’m sure to read more.
November 15, 2020
Ik heb iets opgestoken over Vietnam dat ik niet wist. De jongens werden uitgeloot om in Vietnam te gaan vechten op basis van hun geboortedatum. Eerst alle jongens die op 5 mei werden geboren, dan die op 10 oktober… Het boek opent met een proloog waarin de drie mannelijke hoofdpersonages worden voorgesteld, hun thuissituatie als kind, ouders, persoonlijkheid. Na de proloog zijn ze opeens 66 jaar oud. Ze komen nog een keer samen in het vakantiehuis van één van hen, op een eiland waar 40 jaar geleden het meisje is verdwenen waar ze alle drie stapelverliefd op waren. Een luttele 400 pagina’s verder weet je hoe het zit. Een beetje een whodunit, met een pessimistische visie op de mens: je kan je niet afwenden van de wereld waaruit je bent voortgekomen. Je opvoeding en genen zijn verantwoordelijk voor wie je bent. Geen eigen inbreng dus. Kan tellen als negatief mensbeeld.
May 21, 2020
Die drei Freunde Lincoln, Teddy und Mickey sind 66 Jahre alt und treffen sich vermutlich ein letztes Mal in Lincolns Ferienhaus auf Martha’s Vineyard. Lincoln will das Haus verkaufen, doch noch ist das letzte Wort darüber nicht gesprochen. Die drei Männer studierten gemeinsam, sie waren damals auf ein Stipendium und einen Nebenjob angewiesen und hatten es an kein Elite-College der Ostküste geschafft. Sie mussten sich zur Zeit des Vietnamkriegs zwischen Wehrdienst und Fahnenflucht entscheiden, voller Unsicherheit, ob sie überhaupt ihr Studium abschließen könnten. Allein diese Frage könnte die engsten Freunde entzweien. Als Teddy mit der Fähre auf der Insel ankommt, meint er am Pier Jacy zu sehen. Alle drei waren damals in Jacy/Justine verliebt. Nachdem Jacy 1971 aus dem Ferienhaus verschwand und nicht wieder auftauchte, wurde nie wieder über sie gesprochen. Das Thema Jacy könnte das Wochenende sprengen, egal, ob es angesprochen oder weiter verschwiegen wird. Drei Lebensbilanzen treffen nach 40 Jahren aufeinander, drei Familiengeschichten werden rückblickend erzählt. Verknüpft damit sind Entscheidungen, die damals getroffen werden mussten, ohne dass die Folgen absehbar waren, und mit denen die Männer sich spätestens jetzt abfinden müssen. Lincoln stammt aus einer an sich wohlhabenden Familie, deren Kupfermine durch den Preisverfall bankrottging. Teddy entpuppte sich als Jugendlicher überraschend als elegantes Baseball-Talent und Mickey stammte aus einer kinderreichen irisch-italienischen Arbeiterfamilie. Unerwartet wird Lincoln nun mit dem immensen Wert konfrontiert, den sein Grundstück inzwischen erlangt hat und mit den Plänen, die sein ungeliebter Nachbar mit dem Anwesen hat.
Jacys Verschwinden gibt dem Roman eine zusätzliche Krimi-Ebene und als Leser lauerte ich darauf, ob die junge Frau die Insel damals verlassen hat oder nicht. Den Ermittler von damals, Joe Coffin, hat der Fall nie losgelassen. Er hat sich in der Seniorenresidenz ein Büro eingerichtet, um weiter an dem Fall zu arbeiten. Das Auftauchen der Besucher zwingt Joe, sich mit seinem damaligen Scheitern auseinanderzusetzen und darüber nachzudenken, welche Welt seine Generation den Enkeln hinterlässt.
Eine Person, die vermutlich nicht jeder Leser auf dem Schirm hatte, setzt schließlich eine überraschende Wende in Gang.
Richard Russo zeigt sich hier wieder als wunderbarer Erzähler, der Familien mitsamt ihren Rosenkriegen als verästelte Bäume darzustellen vermag und die Schwächen seiner Figuren wohlwollend entlarvt. Er erzählt nicht, wie eine Person „ist“, sondern lässt sie im Kontakt mit anderen Menschen wirken. Die Rolle des alten Coffin hat mich am stärksten berührt. Russo lästert ungehemmt über den US-amerikanischen akademischen Zirkus, über divenhafte Autoren und die unberechenbare Verlagsbranche und er wirft einen kritischen Blick auf Männerbünde. Ein wichtiges Thema ist der Aufstieg von Jugendlichen aus einfachen Verhältnissen und wie ihre Herkunft sie prägen wird. Außer Einblicken in die vom Vietnamkrieg geprägten 60er Jahre zeigt der Roman zahlreiche Wendepunkte in deren Leben und blickt damit tiefer als es ein reiner Kriminalroman tun würde. Nachdem alle Fäden entwirrt sind, habe ich aus dem Schicksal der ehemaligen Clique gelernt, das Leben wie durch die unterschiedlichen Seiten eines Fernglases zu betrachten – je nach Richtung kann es winzig oder prachtvoll wirken.
Jacys Verschwinden gibt dem Roman eine zusätzliche Krimi-Ebene und als Leser lauerte ich darauf, ob die junge Frau die Insel damals verlassen hat oder nicht. Den Ermittler von damals, Joe Coffin, hat der Fall nie losgelassen. Er hat sich in der Seniorenresidenz ein Büro eingerichtet, um weiter an dem Fall zu arbeiten. Das Auftauchen der Besucher zwingt Joe, sich mit seinem damaligen Scheitern auseinanderzusetzen und darüber nachzudenken, welche Welt seine Generation den Enkeln hinterlässt.
Eine Person, die vermutlich nicht jeder Leser auf dem Schirm hatte, setzt schließlich eine überraschende Wende in Gang.
Richard Russo zeigt sich hier wieder als wunderbarer Erzähler, der Familien mitsamt ihren Rosenkriegen als verästelte Bäume darzustellen vermag und die Schwächen seiner Figuren wohlwollend entlarvt. Er erzählt nicht, wie eine Person „ist“, sondern lässt sie im Kontakt mit anderen Menschen wirken. Die Rolle des alten Coffin hat mich am stärksten berührt. Russo lästert ungehemmt über den US-amerikanischen akademischen Zirkus, über divenhafte Autoren und die unberechenbare Verlagsbranche und er wirft einen kritischen Blick auf Männerbünde. Ein wichtiges Thema ist der Aufstieg von Jugendlichen aus einfachen Verhältnissen und wie ihre Herkunft sie prägen wird. Außer Einblicken in die vom Vietnamkrieg geprägten 60er Jahre zeigt der Roman zahlreiche Wendepunkte in deren Leben und blickt damit tiefer als es ein reiner Kriminalroman tun würde. Nachdem alle Fäden entwirrt sind, habe ich aus dem Schicksal der ehemaligen Clique gelernt, das Leben wie durch die unterschiedlichen Seiten eines Fernglases zu betrachten – je nach Richtung kann es winzig oder prachtvoll wirken.
July 1, 2021
'Chances Are' is a book where I found myself admiring the craftsmanship of the storytelling and nodding in agreement with observations on the relationship between memory and truth, the consensual fictions that sustain friendships, the reality of growing old and the distance between who I am now and who I used to be, but without finding myself immersed in the story and caring about the lives of the people. It was as if I stood in the shallows, admiring the beauty of the incoming tide without ever diving in.
I wasn't surprised at the craftsmanship. 'Empire Falls' is one of my favourite books and Sully from 'Nobody's Fool' has taken up permanent residence in my imagination, becoming someone that my wife and I refer to in conversations as if he were someone we'd once known and still think of. That Richard Russo is describing in those books a world more alien to me than some of the Science Fiction that I read and yet still brings them to life demonstrates just how good a storyteller he is.
So I've been pondering on why 'Chances Are' isn't joining my list of books that I happily recommend to anyone who'll listen.
I ought to be the target audience for this book. I'm the same age as the three men who, in their sixties, are meeting for the first time in many years in a cabin where they spent a memorable summer together in their youth. And a lot of it rings true to me. I nodded at the descriptions of the small discomforts and indignities of growing old, at the way in which we fail to update the mental image we have of someone we knew decades ago. Even though we accept that we've changed and grown older, we don't apply this knowledge to them until confronted with the evidence and even then we filter what we see through the expectations of our memory, looking for what has stayed the same.
The book also has an interesting mystery which is displayed and resolved with consummate skill as Richard Russo moves effortlessly between the past and the present and overlays the conflicting memories of the participants.
So...?
I think it comes down to two things: firstly the way in which the mystery is delivered means we never get inside the head of Micky, who is the most interesting of the three men and secondly, one of the men whose head we do get inside is so blah that I don't know why he's there or why the other men were ever friends with him. It's not that I dislike him. He's not interesting enough to rouse dislike. He's just someone who seems to rolled through his life, gradually becoming more conservative and more privileged and who seems almost free of the curse of introspection beyond occasional annoyance and some concern about whether other people like him.
If Micky had been at the centre of this book, I'd have dived right in but joining in the mild angst of a realtor from Las Vegas who is much more privileged and much more conservative than he realises, didn't call to me. The most interesting thing about him was the woman he married and we never actually meet her.
'Chances Are' is still a well-above-average read, with some great prose, some interesting reflections and a good mystery in it. It just didn't match my very high expectations.
July 31, 2020
While I very much enjoyed this book, I have mixed feelings about its overall quality. Of course, I enjoyed the story, as it evoked my own memories of my college years and friendships based in college and law school and I love those memories. The 3 protagonists of this story are friends from college during the late 60’s and early 70’s and events from these years form the background of the plot. While I’m probably 4 years younger than the 3, I lived through similar events. I have vivid memories of the 1971 draft lottery, 2 years after theirs, and getting a ‘draftable’ number. I also understand the existence of that confident college girl not suitable for a lifetime mate for you but that you longingly pine for anyway. As a rock music fan, I appreciated the music aspect of the story, even the ridicule one character casts on the Decemberists and Belle & Sebastian, two bands I enjoy. So much of the story contains elements so naturally attractive to me that I struggle to be objective in my review but here goes with some comments:
1) Russo effectively evokes the memory of those college years and how those events still relate to our present life;
2) Russo’s structure between past and present and Teddy and Lincoln’s stories was an effective method to propel the reader through the story. It was a page-turner for me;
3) The “what really happened to her” mystery was revealed slowly and was actually fairly well-done and an enjoyable part of the story;
4) Even so, as with the school ‘event’ in Empire Falls, the mystery felt a bit gimmicky, an addition possibly taking emphasis away from the character portrayals and family relations analysis at the core of this and other Russo stories. While the mystery and character studies are intertwined, the reader may become more concerned with wrapping up all the strands of the mystery than with the culmination of each characters’ story arc. But then I probably should just appreciate Russo’s attempt to add a little spice to his normal story. Also, without what I call the ‘gimmick’ you just have a boring story of college friends reuniting. Even the Big Chill needed the mystery of why Kevin Costner’s character did what he did.
Overall, I rate this novel as mid-level Russo – not on par with the two “Fool” novels or “Straight Man” but more fulfilling than That Old Cape Magic and Bridge of Sighs. And mid-level Russo is still pretty darn good. Four stars.
1) Russo effectively evokes the memory of those college years and how those events still relate to our present life;
2) Russo’s structure between past and present and Teddy and Lincoln’s stories was an effective method to propel the reader through the story. It was a page-turner for me;
3) The “what really happened to her” mystery was revealed slowly and was actually fairly well-done and an enjoyable part of the story;
4) Even so, as with the school ‘event’ in Empire Falls, the mystery felt a bit gimmicky, an addition possibly taking emphasis away from the character portrayals and family relations analysis at the core of this and other Russo stories. While the mystery and character studies are intertwined, the reader may become more concerned with wrapping up all the strands of the mystery than with the culmination of each characters’ story arc. But then I probably should just appreciate Russo’s attempt to add a little spice to his normal story. Also, without what I call the ‘gimmick’ you just have a boring story of college friends reuniting. Even the Big Chill needed the mystery of why Kevin Costner’s character did what he did.
Overall, I rate this novel as mid-level Russo – not on par with the two “Fool” novels or “Straight Man” but more fulfilling than That Old Cape Magic and Bridge of Sighs. And mid-level Russo is still pretty darn good. Four stars.
August 16, 2020
Ai, beetje vreemd boek. De keuzes van de vertaler hielpen af en toe ook niet mee, gok ik.
Veel van verwacht en had er echt zin in, maar er zitten nutteloze herhalingen in en in het hele boek is er nauwelijks enige geloofwaardige aandacht voor het vrouwelijke personage, om wie alles in feite draait, en van wie de belangrijkste 'karaktereigenschappen' zijn dat ze a) in de jaren '70 niet altijd een bh droeg (SPANNEND! zucht.) en b) alle drie de boys een keer een speels zoentje heeft gegeven wat zo'n indruk heeft gemaakt dat ze daar 40 jaar later nog mee zitten. Geen grap.
Daarnaast had ik het idee dat niet alles even goed uit de verf kwam. Het boek is soms opeens wel heel subtiel als het op belangrijke onthullingen aankomt, dus het is wel opletten geblazen. Ik vond die subtiliteit niet echt goed passen bij de rest van het boek (veel herhaling, veel geneuzel, vaak juist ongenuanceerd en er in een dikke laag bovenop) dus vraag me af of dit wel expres zo gedaan was of dat de schrijver gewoon niet goed wist hoe hij de personages en gebeurtenissen dieper/beter kon uitwerken.
Las in de reviews dat meer mensen dit een zwakker Russo-boek vinden, dus ga er denk ik nog wel eentje proberen, misschien in het Engels, want om de een of andere reden bleef ik wel aan het lezen, maar nu eerst door met iets anders.
Veel van verwacht en had er echt zin in, maar er zitten nutteloze herhalingen in en in het hele boek is er nauwelijks enige geloofwaardige aandacht voor het vrouwelijke personage, om wie alles in feite draait, en van wie de belangrijkste 'karaktereigenschappen' zijn dat ze a) in de jaren '70 niet altijd een bh droeg (SPANNEND! zucht.) en b) alle drie de boys een keer een speels zoentje heeft gegeven wat zo'n indruk heeft gemaakt dat ze daar 40 jaar later nog mee zitten. Geen grap.
Daarnaast had ik het idee dat niet alles even goed uit de verf kwam. Het boek is soms opeens wel heel subtiel als het op belangrijke onthullingen aankomt, dus het is wel opletten geblazen. Ik vond die subtiliteit niet echt goed passen bij de rest van het boek (veel herhaling, veel geneuzel, vaak juist ongenuanceerd en er in een dikke laag bovenop) dus vraag me af of dit wel expres zo gedaan was of dat de schrijver gewoon niet goed wist hoe hij de personages en gebeurtenissen dieper/beter kon uitwerken.
Las in de reviews dat meer mensen dit een zwakker Russo-boek vinden, dus ga er denk ik nog wel eentje proberen, misschien in het Engels, want om de een of andere reden bleef ik wel aan het lezen, maar nu eerst door met iets anders.
November 28, 2020
I really enjoyed this story of friendship and love. Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey all attend an exclusive college in New England and become friends working as hashers to help pay for college. Lincoln comes from Arizona with a father who feels he is right about everything, Ted's parents are high school English teachers who pretty much ignore their son, Mickey is the youngest with seven sisters. His real love is music and when he aces his SATs his father agrees to send him to college and let him major in what he wants. All three are in love with the same girl, Jacy. To celebrate their graduation they spend one last weekend at Lincoln's family's cottage in Chillmark and then Jacy disappears. Forty years later they spend another weekend there trying to come to terms with what happened. I thought the summer home on the ocean sounded idyllic and there was a real sense of place. I also liked all of the characters. Lincoln was pretty simple, he had married another sorority girl and raised a family. Mickey was a rocker and music was everything. He always said about himself that what you saw is what you got. Teddy to me was the most complex and tended to look deeper into things.
This is only the second book I have read of Mr. Russo's and I hope to read more.
This is only the second book I have read of Mr. Russo's and I hope to read more.
November 20, 2024
I’ve enjoyed all of Richard Russo’s books so far. But this one was particularly good.
September 6, 2020
I don't know if it's our moment in history, but I don't really care about 3 white guys approaching 70, mulling over a college crush. And yes, it was about more than a crush and there were a lot of themes of fate vs. choice. I honestly wasn't expecting this book to go where it went, but it just didn't do much for me. I've read other Russo books and really enjoyed them. The East Coaster in me likes the East Coast love and I did find myself turning the pages to find out what happened to her, but beyond that, there wasn't much. I also felt that Jacy's living character, the woman they all fell in love with in college, wasn't really explored. I didn't really "get" while they all fell so hopelessly in love with her because she wasn't really developed much in those years, even if we found out more about her family later in the book. Jacy's life in college, when Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey got to know and love her, was largely hidden from the reader. What was it about her?
This might just not be what I'm looking for in a book, and admittedly, lately, I've been reading books with women at the center of the plot. I don't regret reading this, but I didn't really connect with the plot or characters in any way.
This might just not be what I'm looking for in a book, and admittedly, lately, I've been reading books with women at the center of the plot. I don't regret reading this, but I didn't really connect with the plot or characters in any way.
August 14, 2019
I loved Russo's Nobody's Fool and Mohawk. I'm also from the Upstate NY area and enjoy his illustrations of life in very old & run down hamlets.
This book is also familiar territory but geographically. I'm 65 and the novel caters to the memories of our youth and college years. The characters are interesting and the plot moves along briskly. I appreciate Russo's aphorisms as well as his ability to very lightly sketch the scenes that do not need a heavy hand. There are several points that he only offers a sentence or two to explain a nasty part of human nature, but it's clear what has occurred.
Russo's sense of humor is rich. Not broad, but lovingly ironic. It's no surprise that he's friends with Pete Dexter (Spooner). They understand the hearts of regular people and why we're such laughable creatures. This novel, Chances Are, is not as funny as Nobody's Fool, but it's a good read and a good reflection on human nature.
This book is also familiar territory but geographically. I'm 65 and the novel caters to the memories of our youth and college years. The characters are interesting and the plot moves along briskly. I appreciate Russo's aphorisms as well as his ability to very lightly sketch the scenes that do not need a heavy hand. There are several points that he only offers a sentence or two to explain a nasty part of human nature, but it's clear what has occurred.
Russo's sense of humor is rich. Not broad, but lovingly ironic. It's no surprise that he's friends with Pete Dexter (Spooner). They understand the hearts of regular people and why we're such laughable creatures. This novel, Chances Are, is not as funny as Nobody's Fool, but it's a good read and a good reflection on human nature.
September 4, 2022
Three men in their late sixties meet in Martha’s Vineyard years after meeting in college and try to solve a murder mystery involving a girl they all were enamored of back in the day. I’m usually a huge Russo fan but the first half of this one was tortuously slow for me , though the second half did pick up a bit.
Read for fav authors 3 stars
Read for fav authors 3 stars
August 31, 2019
I've read all of Russo's books and this is his weakest. Please don't let this one keep you from the humor, insights and great characters of his others. He has great and nuanced views of human nature. Perhaps his muse will return.
July 25, 2021
Richard Russo heeft een nieuw meesterwerk afgeleverd. Een bijzonder ingenieuze roman die leest als een thriller, over drie vrienden die menen elkaar goed te kennen…. Een roman over vriendschap, liefde, herinneringen, geheimen en ouder worden.
September 20, 2019
4.5 but
A fast read tho slowed down to savor the writing
Loved the characters and totally identified with the 60s. Thought the ending a bit too rushed/ forced. But highly recommend
A fast read tho slowed down to savor the writing
Loved the characters and totally identified with the 60s. Thought the ending a bit too rushed/ forced. But highly recommend
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