The Opposite of Chance

(Hardback)

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Description

At thirty-two, Betsy is sheltered. Sheltered by a close-knit family, Catholic schools, college in her hometown, and a marriage at 20. It takes the discovery of her husband's serial philandering to open her eyes and push her out of the nest. It's the summer of 1981, Betsy grabs a backpack and a few good books and puts distance-geographically and emotionally-between herself and the life she knew in the American Midwest. She begins to make her own decisions: about cities, hotels, and dinner entres. At airports, on trains, and in pensiones, Betsy takes her first steps into independence as she negotiates the brief, but intense relationships travelers have. Armed with a book of travelers' phrases and a Swiss Army Knife, she brushes up against possibilities for connection, almost entering the life stories of the strangers she chances upon and whose paths we follow in alternating chapters. We become acquainted with a devout Muslim on a pilgrimage, a French financier raised on a rabbit farm, a lawyer on a solo honeymoon, a Pakistani gambler, a beguiling American threesome en route to Venice, an Italian hotel owner on Lake Como, and a passionate Irish protestor who literally carries her to safety from the streets of Dublin. Finally, back home, Betsy comes to the startling realization that her journey is only just beginning.

Reviews

[Hermes] writes with wit and flair and she vividly evokes the ups (the beauty of a misty evening at Lake Como) and downs (a lonely night in a gritty Le Havre hotel) of European travel. A romantic escape to savor.
When we hearken to the wisdom of our literary ancestors, we get a novel like The Opposite of Chance, and an author like Margaret Hermes, a virtuoso writer navigating the only path that leads to genuine empathy, by embracing multitudes. Bold and brave, Hermes accepts no boundaries on the imagination.
This quick-and-clever Hermes has wings on her prose and a gods eye view, compassionate and wise, of the human comedy. Her plucky heroines European journey is replete with excursions into the lives of her fellow travelers, taking us along on a novelistic grand tour de finesse.

Author Bio

Margaret Hermes grew up in Chicago and lives in Saint Louis. Her short fiction collection, Relative Strangers, was the recipient of the Doris Bakwin Award. In addition to dozens of stories that have appeared in journals such as Fiction International, The Laurel Review, Confrontation, River Styx, and The Literary Review, and in anthologies such as 20 Over 40 and Under the Arch, her published and performed work includes a novel, The Phoenix Nest, and a stage adaptation of an Oscar Wilde fable. When not writing, she concentrates her energies on environmental issues.