
Chances Are...
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Fred Sanders
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By:
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Richard Russo
About this listen
“[Russo’s] first novel in ten years hits the ball out of the park.... You’ll lap up this gripping, wise, and wonderful summer treat.” (The Boston Globe)
“A cascade of charm.... Russo is an undeniably endearing writer, and chances are this story will draw you back to the most consequential moments in your own life.” (The Washington Post)
One beautiful September day, three men in their late 60s convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college in the '60s. 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 is 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, 45 years later, three lives and that of a significant other are put on display while the distant past confounds the present in a relentless squall of surprise and discovery. Shot through with Russo's trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are... introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the listener's heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga.
©2019 Richard Russo (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Thirty years ago, Wilde was found as a boy living feral in the woods, with no memory of his past. Now an adult, he still doesn't know where he comes from, and another child has gone missing. No one seems to take Naomi Pine's disappearance seriously, not even her father - with one exception. Hester Crimstein, a television criminal attorney, knows through her grandson that Naomi was relentlessly bullied at school. Hester asks Wilde - with whom she shares a tragic connection - to use his unique skills to help find Naomi.
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Overall
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There’s nothing more complicated than the relationship among family...especially when the Silva sisters are keeping secrets. For Sierra it means returning home with her two little boys after a devastating Napa wildfire takes her home, her job, and even the last mementos of her late husband, David. Determined to start over, how can she ever reveal the truth - that her husband may have led a double life? To the world, Amy’s world is perfect: handsome husband, delightful children, an Instagram-worthy home. But behind this facade lies an awful truth....
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Couldn't finish..listen to a sample before you buy
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Quicksilver
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Quinn Quicksilver was born a mystery—abandoned at three days old on a desert highway in Arizona. Raised in an orphanage, never knowing his parents, Quinn had a happy if unexceptional life. Until the day of “strange magnetism.” It compelled him to drive out to the middle of nowhere. It helped him find a coin worth a lot of money. And it practically saved his life when two government agents showed up in the diner in pursuit of him. Now Quinn is on the run from those agents and who knows what else, fleeing for his life.
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This is hard to listen to.
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Sleeping Beauties
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: They become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place.... The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease.
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Just pathetic!!
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Critic reviews
“[Russo’s] first novel in ten years hits the ball out of the park.... Along with his wry eye for irony and regret, [Russo] offers up a compelling mystery.... When the denouement comes, it’s a stunner. Nevertheless, all bombshells feel earned. If you’re on a hammock in the Vineyard or under a tent in Acadia, or slumped over the fire escape of your hot city apartment, chances are your chances are awfully good that you’ll lap up this gripping, wise, and wonderful summer treat.” (Mameve Medwed, The Boston Globe)
“A cascade of charm.... Each [character is] so appealing that you hate to let him go, though you’ll quickly feel just as fond of the next one.... One of the great pleasures of Chances Are... stems from how gracefully Russo moves the story along two time frames, creating that uncanny sense of memories that feel simultaneously near and remote.... Russo is an undeniably endearing writer, and chances are this story will draw you back to the most consequential moments in your own life.” (Ron Charles, The Washington Post)
"Chances Are... is, at heart, less a mystery than an evocation of what happens when [its characters] discover that 'the membrane separating sympathy from pity could be paper thin'.... The cloud of remorse that hangs over [the novel] can be affecting precisely because these old friends have so much difficulty articulating their emotions. Will they be able to open up to whatever the future holds?" (Alida Becker, The New York Times Book Review)
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Interesting storytelling
- By Jenn on 07-02-19
By: M. T. Edvardsson, and others
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Haven Point
- A Novel
- By: Virginia Hume
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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A sweeping debut novel about the generations of a family that spends summers in a seaside enclave on Maine's rocky coastline, for fans of Elin Hilderbrand, Beatriz Williams, and Sarah Blake.
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Great story written and read
- By Beeb on 06-25-21
By: Virginia Hume
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Empire Falls
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion’s widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn’t already boarded up. Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his life.
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Hugely Enjoyable
- By margaret on 01-23-12
By: Richard Russo
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The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
- A Novel
- By: Dominic Smith
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1631, Sara de Vos is admitted as a master painter to the Guild of St. Luke's in Holland, the first woman to be so recognized. Three hundred years later, only one work attributed to de Vos is known to remain - a haunting winter scene, At the Edge of a Wood, which hangs over the bed of a wealthy descendant of the original owner. An Australian grad student, Ellie Shipley, struggling to stay afloat in New York, agrees to paint a forgery of the landscape, a decision that will haunt her.
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Undone by Cadmium Yellow
- By Mel on 04-18-16
By: Dominic Smith
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Wolf at the Table
- By: Adam Rapp
- Narrated by: Paul Sparks
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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As late summer 1951 descends on Elmira, New York, Myra Larkin, thirteen, the oldest child of a large Catholic family, meets a young man she believes to be Mickey Mantle. He chats her up at a local diner and gives her a ride home. The matter consumes her until later that night, when a triple homicide occurs just down the street, opening a specter of violence that will haunt the Larkins for half a century.
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extraordinary writing.
- By michelle martinez on 05-23-24
By: Adam Rapp
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Bridge of Sighs
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 26 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Louis Charles ("Lucy") Lynch has spent all his 60 years in upstate Thomaston, New York, married to the same woman, Sarah, for 40 of them, their son now a grown man. Like his late, beloved father, Lucy is an optimist, though he's had plenty of reasons not to be: chief among them his mother, still indomitably alive.
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Wonderful
- By Victoria Wright on 10-08-07
By: Richard Russo
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When We Were Silent
- A Novel
- By: Fiona McPhillips
- Narrated by: India Mullen
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Louise Manson is the newest student at Highfield Manor, Dublin’s most exclusive private school. It seems nearly perfect: the high arched window alcoves and tall granite pillars, the overspill of lilac at the front gate and the immaculate playing fields, the giggling students, the dusty, oak-lined library, and the dark, festering secret she has come to expose. At first, Lou’s working-class status makes her the consummate outsider, though all that changes when she is befriended by the beautiful and wealthy Shauna Power.
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Loved!
- By Jenni on 10-22-24
By: Fiona McPhillips
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Heads You Win
- By: Jeffrey Archer
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From an early age, it is clear that Alexander Karpenko is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, Alexander and his mother will have to escape Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they have an irreversible choice: board a container ship bound for America or one bound for Great Britain. Alexander leaves the choice to a toss of a coin....
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The twists earn 5 stars
- By Wayne on 11-15-18
By: Jeffrey Archer
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That Old Cape Magic
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father’s ashes in the trunk, but his mother is very much alive and not shy about calling on his cell phone. She does so as he drives down to Cape Cod, where he and his wife, Joy, will celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura’s best friend. For Griffin this is akin to driving into the past, since he took his childhood summer vacations here, his parents’ respite from the hated Midwest.
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Instantly-recognizable Richard Russo book
- By Fred Pike on 10-04-09
By: Richard Russo
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The Story of Arthur Truluv
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.
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Sickly Sweet
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-18
By: Elizabeth Berg
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The Lost Man
- By: Jane Harper
- Narrated by: Stephen Shanahan
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Two brothers meet at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. In an isolated belt of Western Australia, they are each other’s nearest neighbor, their homes a four-hour drive apart. The third brother lies dead at their feet. Something caused Cam, the middle child who had been in charge of the family homestead, to die alone in the middle of nowhere. So the eldest brother returns with his younger sibling to the family property and those left behind. But the fragile balance of the ranch is threatened.
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Excellent
- By KadysMom on 02-09-19
By: Jane Harper
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The Guest Book
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Blake
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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No. It is a simple word, uttered on a summer porch in 1936. And it will haunt Kitty Milton for the rest of her life. Kitty and her husband, Ogden, are both from families considered the backbone of the country. But this refusal will come to be Kitty’s defining moment, and its consequences will ripple through the Milton family for generations. For while they summer on their island in Maine, anchored as they are to the way things have always been, the winds of change are beginning to stir.
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Reader mispronounced too many words
- By Catherine Newton on 05-19-19
By: Sarah Blake
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The Trail of Lost Hearts
- A Novel
- By: Tracey Garvis Graves
- Narrated by: Eric Meyers, Kate Handford
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Thirty-four-year-old Wren Waters believes that if you pay attention, the universe will send you exactly what you need. But her worldview shatters when the universe delivers two life-altering blows she didn’t see coming, and all she wants to do is put the whole heartbreaking mess behind her. No one is more surprised than Wren when she discovers that geocaching—the outdoor activity of using GPS to look for hidden objects—is the only thing getting her out of bed and out of her head. She decides that a weeklong solo quest geocaching in Oregon is exactly what she needs to take back control....
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Characters face grief
- By Blenz on 09-11-24
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Straight Man
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Sam Freed
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park.
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Straight Man
- By Holly Abery-Wetstone on 10-17-03
By: Richard Russo
What listeners say about Chances Are...
Highly rated for:
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- lori scheufler
- 09-11-20
A bit of a let down after bland build up
I feel it started out on a good note-you know something happened to the girl, each grown man is wondering what happened, how things could have turned out differently when they all were in college and in love with this girl. I kind of liked how the story went back and forth from when they each were growing up, to how things were in college and where they all went after graduation to present day as middle aged men. I liked how each person was shown with their vulnerabilities, where things took different turns in their lives. But that’s where my liking of this story ends. The ending is terrible in my opinion. I guess I shouldn’t be so harsh as each character is vulnerable and trying to figure it all out, especially in middle age. But how it all comes to a head just shows up. Here’s this big mystery with mediocre build up and it all kind of flops, taking forever to get there.
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- Orchidsand
- 01-05-20
slow starter
This book took a few chapters before I was drawn in. once in did not want to put it down.
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- willa litvack
- 09-15-19
A Mixed Bag
There are great elements but parts of the story seem contrived. Character development is similarly uneven.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Tom
- 08-12-19
Possible answers to the questions of youth.
Fate or Free Will? Accident or Predestination?
Who we were then and who we are now? Who we thought we would be and what we expected we’d do vs who we turned out to be and what we did. All the questions we asked when we were young and asked again in later years.
All these issues addressed and maybe answered by three finely wrought characters during an island reunion fifty years and many page-turning scenes from their youth, later.
As all of Russo’s work, Chances Are . . . is an engaging piece that reflects on the thoughts and actions of old men looking back on the thoughts and actions of their youth. Without giving anything away, the reader walks away secure in the notion that survival and even renewal might be possible at any point in life. Might be possible.
A comforting to a gentleman of a certain age and an enjoyable read.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Amy Buckley
- 08-25-19
Brilliant.
The mystery unfolds slowly and deliciously. The characters are now old friends who I will miss hearing from for a very long while.
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- Barbara G.
- 10-14-19
slow to begin, almost stopped,
but glad i didn't.. wish he would do a sequel want to know what happened with Dileha
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- D Parker
- 12-13-19
Loved this book and the reader.
The characters were interesting and well defined. The reader was really, really good. The time period (high school age through 60s) was well done.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-10-19
Disappointing for a Russo book.
Biggest complaint was narrator. Book quoted many songs. should have been sung, not wierdly chanted. Quite annoying.
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- Adam Connor
- 02-23-25
Great book with an interesting ending
I suspect a lot of people didn't love the ending, which isn't as straightforwardly upbeat as Nobody's Fool. To my way of thinking, the ending is great, and the fact that it is a very different book is testimony to Russo's abilities as a writer -- he doesn't just repeat his successes.
I'd put this in the top tier of his work.
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- A. Kelley
- 09-19-19
Started out well but fizzled
Initially, the characters and dialogue were interesting, but the story went on day too long and devolved into rather formulaic teepee work the standard Daddy incessant "store" that I knew was coming way in
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