SALT LAKE CITY — In December 1969, Richard Russo was one of a group of young men glued to a television screen in a sorority house to watch the first Vietnam War draft lottery.
“I remember all the terrible jokes,” Russo said in a recent phone interview. “We were all young men and I think the small part of our brains that was tethered to reality knew that something momentous was happening to us. I think we had an inkling that the trajectory of our lives was about to change. There was this sense of camaraderie and it was very lighthearted. Over the course of the evening, things got more and more serious.”
Russo’s number wasn’t drawn that day, but that evening left an indelible mark on his life — one he channeled as a similarly life-changing event for his characters in “Chances Are…”, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s first standalone novel in more than a decade. The Maine-based author will be reading from the novel and signing books at the King’s English this Friday.
“Chances Are …” follows three men — Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey — who came together on that draft lottery night and became fast friends. As they have grown older, their approach to old age prompts them to revisit the unsolved disappearance of a female friend, Jacy. The search — and what they find — makes them reflect on decades-old misconceptions and how time has changed them as individuals and friends.
“All of my novels begin with something that’s really troubling me. I can’t work my way through it, I can’t reach any intellectual conclusion about it, so the only recourse I have is to write the book. This book was like that,” said Russo. “I’m troubled by the way the war has haunted this generation. The draft didn’t last that long, but men my age everywhere I’ve gone so far, they’ve come up and wanted to tell me their stories about how their lives have changed as a result of that pingpong ball (used in the draft lottery.)”
While much of the book examines how the stress of that moment affected the rest of the characters’ lives, Russo said, he also wanted to show the effect the war had on even men who didn’t go. Two of the characters’ numbers never come up, while the third fled to Canada until the presidential pardon made it safe for him to go home in 1977. More than 40 years after those events, the characters wonder what became of the men who went in their places. Russo said that idea had been rolling in his head since he saw it articulated in “Springsteen on Broadway,” Bruce Springsteen’s concert residency at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre from 2017-2018.
“It haunted him that somebody had (gone to war) when he hadn’t and maybe that person died, and that’s what weighs on me, too,” said Russo.
In addition to the ghosts of war and what might have been if they’d each been a little less lucky, Russo’s characters all grapple with their shifting relationships with their parents, each in their own way. As Lincoln faces the decline of his one surviving parent and the traits he picked up — or missed — from each, Teddy comes to terms with the ways in which his life might have been profoundly different with parents who were more involved in his life. In flashbacks to the past, Jacy’s life is revealed to have been devastated by her parents, and her fate sealed by a bad roll of the genetic dice. Mickey continues to try to ease his conscience troubled by fleeing to Canada by trying to convince his father, who died years before the draft, why going to war would have been a mistake.
”Those are my favorite parts of this book. My father died first, of my two parents,” said Russo, noting a main character of his books “Nobody’s Fool” and “Everybody’s Fool” was drawn heavily from his own deceased father. “He may have died but he hasn’t gone anywhere. Maybe my single favorite scene in this book is imaginary, where Mickey’s in a diner and his father is explaining why he has to go to this dumb war. That’s Mickey at age 66 still talking to his beloved father who’s been dead for years.”
Although the book is about friendship, loss and the effects of war long after the last shot has been fired, Russo hopes the disconnect between luck and effort and success or failure is the theme that lingers longest with readers of all ages and backgrounds. For Russo, a little luck on the day of the draft lottery set him on a course many others didn’t get to travel.
“I think successful people tend to overemphasize free will. Those people who were born on third base thinking they hit a triple — it doesn’t occur to them an awful lot of things had to go right before they were born for them to end up where they are,” he said. “All the luck and all the blessings of my life, and there are many, are traceable to that day. … I think this book is my attempt to explain the workings of destiny, to not take yourself too seriously and not imagine the success you’ve had is a product of your own doing — and maybe the mistakes aren’t as bad as you thought they were.”
If you go …
What: Richard Russo “Chances Are…” reading and signing
When: Friday, Aug. 16, 7 p.m.
Where: The King’s English Bookshop, 1511 S. 1500 East
Web: www.kingsenglish.com
Note: Places in the signing line are reserved for those who purchase a copy of “Chances Are…” from The King’s English.