Chances Are

One beautiful September day, three sixty-six-year-old men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college in the 1960s. 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 an ageing musician. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since 1971: the disappearance of their friend Jacy. Now, decades later, the distant past interrupts the present as the truth about what happened to Jacy finally emerges, forcing the men to reconsider everything they thought they knew about each other.





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.





For both longtime fans and lucky newcomers, Chances Are is a stunning demonstration of a highly-acclaimed author deepening and expanding his remarkable body of work.



RICHARD RUSSO is the author of eight previous novels, two collections of stories, a collection of essays and the memoir On Helwig Street. 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; in 2016 he was given the Indie Champion Award by the American Booksellers Association; and in 2017 he received France's Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine. He lives in Portland, Maine.



Cleverly paced, Russo's latest novel folds page-turning suspense into an unhurried, warmly observed portrait of friendship in later life.



His stories are omnisciently narrated in a tone of sardonic understanding of human folly, which places him in the house of American style on a polished mezzanine between John Updike and Anne Tyler...Chances Are, a rare mix of the tense and tender, should gain Russo further literary acclaim.



There's much to enjoy in Richard Russo's typically nuanced portrait of three childhood friends...[a] fine-grained exploration of troubled, small-town masculinity...Russo's prose is so quietly melodious you can almost hear it singing.



An eloquent excavation of long-buried secrets.



totally engrossing...Humane and beautifully crafted, it provides further compelling evidence of Russo's prestige as a contemporary American writer.



...chances are awfully good that you'll lap up this gripping, wise and wonderful summer treat.



Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo balances suspense with comedy in this gripping tale.



Richard Russo is often compared to Dickens, to whom he clearly owes a debt, but the ghost hovering over his fabulous new novel, Chances Are, feels more like Sam Shepard...Next to Colson Whitehead's new book, there's not a better paced summer read



...blends everything we love about this author with something new...Vintage Russo...No one understands men better than Russo, and no one is more eloquent in explaining how they think, suffer and love.



Russo's hallmark themes - the intricacy of male friendships, one-sided love, the collision of the past with the present - are on full display



...a brisk story with memorable characters and smart things to say about loss and missed opportunities.



...there's heart and beauty on every page.



Richard Russo can write like Edith Wharton leavened with a touch of David Lodge.



A writer of great comedy and warmth, Russo's living proof that a book can be profound and wise without aiming straight into darkness.



Perhaps if it was pointed out that here was a US writer who stood somewhere between Anne Tyler at her darkest and Russell Banks, with an occasional hint of Richard Ford at his least bleak, perhaps Russo would become as widely read as he deserves to be.



No one writing today captures the detail of life with such stunning accuracy.