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    Happenstance: Two Novels in One About a Marriage in Transition
    Unavailable
    Happenstance: Two Novels in One About a Marriage in Transition
    Unavailable
    Happenstance: Two Novels in One About a Marriage in Transition
    Ebook539 pages7 hours

    Happenstance: Two Novels in One About a Marriage in Transition

    By Carol Shields

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Two novels in one, Happenstance tells the story of a marriage from the individual perspectives of a husband and wife at a turning point in their relationship
    When we meet Brenda Bowman in “The Wife’s Story,” the forty-year-old mother of two is preparing to fly to Philadelphia to attend a craft convention that will feature one of her quilts. She already has the flight memorized: leaving Chicago at 8:35, arriving at Philadelphia at 1:33. This will be her first trip solo, her first time away from her husband, Jack, in their decades-long marriage. She’s nervous, excited . . . and tempted when she meets an intriguing stranger.
    “The Husband’s Story” introduces Jack Bowman, a historian who is left at home with his troubled son and overweight daughter while his wife, Brenda, attends a craft convention. Not used to coping on his own, he’s suddenly confronted with domestic calamities, including the disintegration of his best friend’s marriage. And when he learns that an old flame has published a book on the same topic that Jack has been laboring on for years, Jack’s self-doubt reaches crisis proportions.
    Happenstance     is an intimate portrait of a marriage in transition. “History,” to Jack, is “not the story itself. It’s the end of the story.”
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateDec 17, 2013
    ISBN9781480459588
    Unavailable
    Happenstance: Two Novels in One About a Marriage in Transition
    Author

    Carol Shields

    Carol Shields’s novels include Unless; Larry’s Party, winner of The Women’s Prize; The Stone Diaries, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; The Republic of Love; Happenstance; and Mary Swann. Dressing Up for the Carnivaland Various Miracles, collections of short stories, were later published as The Collected Stories. Brought up in Chicago, Shields lived in Canada from 1957 until her death in 2003.

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    Reviews for Happenstance

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    • 5/5
      “Happenstance, The Husband’s Story was first published in Canada by McGraw-Hill Ryerson in 1980. Happenstance, The Wife’s Story was first published as A Fairly Conventional Woman in Canada by Macmillan of Canada 1982. This volume first published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate Limited 1991.Published back to front, but the need for publishing info constructs the book so that most will start with the wife’s story. I read in order of publication (ie husband first). I'm glad I did.In 1978 Jack and Brenda Bowman, have been married for 20 years and have 2 kids (Rob 14 and Laurie 12), and live in a suburb of Chicago built in the 1920s. Brenda, a quilter, has gone to Philly for 5 days to attend a craft conference, leaving Jack with the kids. This time apart is unusual for them.While Brenda is away, Jack deals with his “best friend” Bernie’s marriage break-up, a giant snow-storm, and the news that an old girlfriend is publishing a book on the very area that he is writing his (stalled) one: Indian trading practices. (In the end, Harriet is writing about India, Jack about the Great Lakes indigenous peoples.)Brenda deals with running into an old friend who is attending another conference in the same hotel and flirts with the possibility of being unfaithful. I loved the concept of this completed novel. Shields' books aren't high-octane plots but her writing is gorgeous and she had an amazing insight into human nature.
    • 4/5
      Earlier this year I read Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff and while it has a few moments of brilliance, I didn’t think it was all that stellar. A review mentioned Happenstance as a better novel about two sides of a marriage and after doing a bit of research I decided to get a copy. Originally there were two books published; The Husband's story in 1980 and The Wife’s story in 1982. I tried to get them as individual books, but finally settled for the paperback which is presented with two front covers, with the sections laid back to back, one upside down from the other. You have to flip the book over to read the other side. It’s a bit gimmicky, but it works and specifically for how I wanted to read the novel; not one entire narrative at a time, but interleaving the chapters staying at roughly the same time period for each. I think it worked.Ostensibly it’s the tale of Brenda and Jack and their first time spent apart for any long period; five days, but also it’s the story of their whole marriage and how each sees it and the other. There aren’t any great secrets here or earth shattering reveals, it’s a quieter novel about the quotidian parts of married life and how they can mask deeper currents or even soothe an unquiet heart. There are differences as well as parallels between the stories. Jack brings procrastination to a whole new level; he’s an artist and therefore has an unfinished manuscript that’s been languishing for years. In Brenda’s story there is an unfinished quilt, but because she’s a doer, we know it won’t stay that way for long and I wonder if she’s leaving it unfinished so Jack won’t feel so badly about his book. The ultimate solution about Jack’s book and the spectre of Harriet Post is pretty funny and typical of a man in Jack’s place and time, well almost any man, really, thinking himself center of everyone’s universe. At heart though, Jack is lazy and so dependent on other people that he leaves his kitchen a reeking mess and can’t change the ribbon on his own typewriter. He is loyal though and so is Brenda and they both have the same romantic idea of their shared domestic situation; delighting in its simplicity and it’s mark of adulthood. Brenda is ending one phase of her life and beginning another; her kids aren’t dependent on her even if her husband is and she’s sort of going through the stages of grief over it; the anger phase is most prominent. The guild gathering is the perfect way to snap it off and mark it well. I did think that the quilt motif a bit heavy-handed in the sense that it’s Brenda’s way of seeing and processing history which is so different from Jack’s more literal way. The comment on how women’s artistic endeavors have been ignored and sidelined into “handicrafts” didn’t go unnoticed. It reminds me of the way some “pure” scientists ridiculed Benjamin Franklin because his approach was toward the practical application of science, not just for itself. The metallurgists anyone? Even though Jack is fallow, and not producing much, is his work inherently more important than Brenda’s because hers takes the form of quilts? It’s just one of the many questions you’ll have to think about with this novel.
    • 3/5
      Interesting premise...essentially two books in one, where you learn what happens during five days that a married couple spends away from each other, from each of their perspectives. The focus on domestic minutiae irritated me occasionally, and I didn't really love either character.

      I recommend reading The Husband's Story first, though you could go either way.
    • 4/5
      In the first 50 pages I couldn't tell if I liked Mrs. Brenda Bowman. She seemed too persnickety to me. Too particular. Too fussy. I am prone to comparing characters to myself, especially if we have something in common like upbringing, hobbies, schooling, age, or certain circumstance. In Brenda's case, it was age. We are almost the same age. So, by default her actions made me seem fuddy-duddy. Her husband seemed more laid back in an odd, disconnected kind of way. Together, they made up a marriage that needed some waking up, some simulaneous letting go. Both husband and wife had the opportunity to cheat on the other. I don't think it's a plot spoiler if I say the wife comes closer to doing so than the husband, even though the husband has a better excuse.
    • 4/5
      I love Carol Shields writing, and her patience in describing the everyday, and the unrelenting (often gentle) tug of wanting a little bit more; a little bit different. in 'Happenstance' she evokes the meaningfulness and intimacy that family and marriage provide its members well beyond the the everyday explanations.
    • 4/5
      Carol Shields' deftness for the quietness of life is on display here, as a couple in the throes of the extraordinary cannot avoid the contrast with everyday existence.
    • 5/5
      Nobody has reviewed this book and I'm amazed because it is my very favourite of all Carol Sheilds novels. It's written as two books in one and covers the course of about five days in the life of a married couple. My copy flips over and upside down so at one side you read Brenda's story and when that ends in the middle of the book, you turn it over to read the story of her husband, Jack. Brenda is away at a convention and Jack stays at home with their two teenage children. Both stories are eventful in different ways and give you both points of view on the state of Brenda and Jack's marriage.I love this book and feel quite comforted whenever I read it.