Not sure how I managed to miss this until today, but Richard Russo has a new novel coming out this year! (Maybe it’s a late addition to the publisher’s schedule.) One of my favourite writers, I’m really looking forward to Chances Are…. Due to be published by Knopf on July 30th in North America, here’s the synopsis:
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.
Really looking forward to this. Easily one of my most-anticipated novels of the year. Russo’s most recent books have been published in the UK by Allen & Unwin, so I guess they’ll be releasing the UK edition later this year?
Civilian Reader 