{"id":6192,"date":"2026-04-28T10:32:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=6192"},"modified":"2026-04-28T10:32:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:32:23","slug":"destiny-and-other-follies-by-gregory-venters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=6192","title":{"rendered":"Destiny and Other Follies by Gregory Venters"},"content":{"rendered":"

A thoughtful musing on midlife self-isolation and corporate frustration set in the early days of COVID-19<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Gregory Venters\u2019 Destiny and Other Follies <\/em>is a successful meditation on how a middle-aged man\u2019s emotional withdrawal alters his career and marriage. Calder Brandt, an industry consultant for a company called Scientific Management, is perpetually undermined in his attempts at promotion, while, in his private life, he struggles to maintain a meaningful connection with his Bosnian wife Hana.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calder Brandt is an everyman hero, a middle-aged drone struggling to distinguish himself in a corporate hierarchy full of younger, savvier coworkers. Brandt\u2019s primary stumbling block is the long-term effect of his treatments for throat cancer eleven years before. Radiation and chemotherapy ravaged him physically, compromising his ability to speak and even swallow with confidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA quick slug of water raised a raspy cough. He tried to join the ongoing conversation, but his first words scratched like an old phonograph needle and passed unnoticed.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rather than transparency, Brandt opts to hide his condition from his colleagues, giving them little context for his moments of difficulty. \u201cHe tested his voice, tried to apologize, but emitted only a thin garble. The others nearest him shifted uneasily in their seats.\u201d <\/em><\/strong>These moments, which Venters effectively renders, make Calder at once sympathetic and mildly frustrating. He tells Hana that he does not want coworkers to pity him, while subjecting himself to the limiting factor of their not understanding why he struggles to connect.<\/p>\n

The specter of office politics underpins Brandt\u2019s physical insecurity. At the start of the novel, Brandt is jockeying for a promotion while being convinced of a colleague\u2019s duplicity. A last-minute roundtable is so far beyond his comfort zone that he wonders if his participation is a form of sabotage.\u00a0 \u201cRoundtable discussions\u2026 Introducing myself. You know I don\u2019t do that stuff well. It\u2019s the kind of thing I\u2019d hoped to avoid.\u201d He started to say, \u201cIt almost feels like a setup\u2014\u201d <\/em><\/strong>As expected, the round table goes poorly.<\/p>\n

Venters does an effective job of establishing Brandt\u2019s situation subtly. The novel opens with Calder\u2019s meeting with a doctor prior to the dreaded roundtable. There, we learn that he survived throat cancer eleven years before but is now experiencing the adverse effects of his treatments. \u201cThe reality is, you\u2019re stuck with the consequences of the treatment.\u201d <\/em><\/strong>The doctor is bluff and dismissive of Brandt\u2019s concerns, again underscoring Brandt\u2019s sense of alienation in the wake of the cancer. <\/em><\/strong>We are not given much context or specificity in the moment to fully understand what we are being told.<\/p>\n

The appointment serves two purposes\u2014to put a gun on the mantle regarding Calder\u2019s inability to speak with confidence\u2014a cue that Venters picks up in various professional and social interactions. The appointment also establishes that he chooses <\/em>to isolate. He chooses to go to the appointment alone, even though his wife accompanied him to the city. Much later, when Hana asks him how it went, he brushes it and his poor performance at the roundtable aside, leaving her in her own tenuous situation. \u201cHis brevity instilled zero confidence. [\u2026] If he became immobile, she would be the one nursing him. If he went away, she would be left stranded in a country not her own.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Calder\u2019s habit of turning inward is one of the novel\u2019s primary threads. It\u2019s an effective character beat, establishing clearly that Calder is deeply entrenched in his dissatisfaction. However, it becomes a bit repetitive as structural idiosyncrasies undermine Calder\u2019s natural character arc. We\u2019ll often lead with the event and save critical context for a later asynchronous flashback. The result makes the narrative feel disjointed at times, perhaps mirroring Calder\u2019s disconnection in his own life.<\/p>\n

On the sentence level, Venters\u2019 descriptions are lovely, as is his subtlety in showing the interplay between characters. This is especially notable with Calder\u2019s wife Hana, whom he portrays with warmth and sympathy. We repeatedly see her reaching out to her husband only to be rebuffed. We also see her willingness to form connection, as with a homeless man on a bus. Hana\u2019s open-heartedness makes a leavening foil for Calder\u2019s grimly determined resignation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calder Brandt is at once sympathetic and not entirely likable, but Venters succeeds in showing us why<\/em> he is the way he is: regularly withdrawing but capable of connection and change. Calder\u2019s is a melancholy triumph, but a triumph all the same.<\/p>\n

The post Destiny and Other Follies by Gregory Venters<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A thoughtful musing on midlife self-isolation and corporate frustration set in the early days of COVID-19 Gregory Venters\u2019 Destiny and Other Follies is a successful meditation on how a middle-aged man\u2019s emotional withdrawal alters his career and marriage. Calder Brandt, an industry consultant for a company called Scientific Management, is perpetually undermined in his attempts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}