All-purpose | Everything Else

Happenstance (Sightline Books)

by Robert Root

2021-01-05 23:31:16

Compare Price
Reflecting on how a student’s parents met because of a fly ball to center field in a summer softball game, author Robert Root wondered how the lives of that student’s parents and of the student himself would have changed had the batter bu... Read more
Reflecting on how a student’s parents met because of a fly ball to center field in a summer softball game, author Robert Root wondered how the lives of that student’s parents and of the student himself would have changed had the batter bunted or struck out. Haunted by this pure example of happenstance, he began to ponder his own existence, dependent in part on geology (the Niagara Escarpment) and history (the Erie Canal). He wondered how happenstance had influenced the course of his parents’ lives, in particular their marriages (they married and divorced each other twice), and consequently the shaping of his identity. Happenstance investigates the effects of that phenomenon and choice on one man’s life.
Root explores this theme in interwoven strands of narrative, interpretation, and reflection. One strand, “The Hundred Days,” follows his attempt to write one hundred journal entries, each about a different day in his life, to recover memories of specific moments or collections of moments. In the strand headed “Album,” he examines and interprets old family photographs in light of the way he reads them in the present, as someone now privy to a family secret that directed his and his siblings’ lives without their knowledge. Interspersed among these brief interpretations and narratives are reflections on happenstance and choice, a sequence contemplating their effect on his life and perhaps on all our lives. Through juxtaposition and accumulation, the book’s incremental unraveling of meaning imitates the process of unexpected epiphanies and gradual self-discovery in anyone’s life.
By revisiting individual days, giving voice to photographs that mutely preserve family moments, and reflecting on the way happenstance and choice determine the directions lives take, Robert Root generates a meditation on identity anchored in an album in words and images of a mid-twentieth-century life.
 
Less

Book Details

ISBN9781609381912
autor-image
Robert Root
Author
Robert Root is a writer, editor, and teacher. A professor emeritus of English at Central Michigan University, he has spoken on creative nonfiction and the teaching of writing at national and internati...

Compare Prices

Store Availability Book Format Condition Price
BetterWorld.com - New, Used, Rare Books & Textbooks In Stock Buy USD 4.91
Indigo Books & Music In Stock Buy CAD 32.50
BetterWorld.com - New, Used, Rare Books & TextbooksIn Stock
Format
Condition
Buy USD 4.91
Indigo Books & MusicIn Stock
Format
Condition
Buy CAD 32.50
Available Discount
No Discount available

Related Books

View All
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
The Pout-Pout Fish
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
You Be You: Detox Your Life, Crush Your Limitations, and Own Your Awesome
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Hurricane Season
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Row, Row, Row Your Boat (Indestructibles Series)
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Going to School
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick!
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Life Will Be the Death of Me: ...And You Too!
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
The Book Club
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Made for Me
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
The Silent Woman (Cat Carlisle, Book 1)
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
We Are Not Friends (You Are Not Small)
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
The Secret Wife: A captivating story of romance, passion and mystery
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Feed Your Best Friend Better: Easy, Nutritious Meals and Treats for Dogs
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
The Wonderful Things You Will Be
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Secrets Between Us: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Good Night, Little Blue Truck
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Can't Make This Stuff Up!: Finding the Upside to Life's Downs
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
House of Shadows: An Enthralling Historical Mystery
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Clean & Lean: 30 Days, 30 Foods, a New You!
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (Indestructibles Series)
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
${ornaments[Math.floor(Math.random()*ornaments.length)]}
Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Join us and get access to all
your favourite books

Sign up for free and start exploring thousands of eBooks today.

Sign up for free

Stay in touch.

© 2026 AMPLE READS