CHANCE
An Existential Horse Opera
Finalist for the 2003 Washington State Book Awards
A drifting cowhand wakes from a dead drunk one morning at the edge of a town he can’t remember. As he struggles to clear his mind, an old man’s tale of betrayal and revenge sends him on an unlikely quest.
In a loose retelling of Virgil’s tale of Dido and Aeneus, the man who calls himself Chance makes his way from the wastelands of South Texas across mythic and ironic landscapes into the midst of a Montana range feud, where he hopes to seize his destiny by recovering the past.
In the tradition of the literary western, Mr. Knisely spins a yarn that is at once an adventure, a mystery, and a journey to discovery of the self.
“James Knisely’s strange and gripping novel about a man named Chance is a saga of the old west with a metaphysical twist. A quest story, replete with suspense, romance, a tangled and deadly past and one unforgettable cowboy.”
Priscilla long, Author, Crossing Over; Holy Magic (poems); The Writer’s Portable Mentor
“Knisely’s Chance, An Existential Horse Opera has earned a place on your shelves between the work of Larry McMurtry and Thomas McGuane.”
Jack Cady, Author, The Well; The Jonah Watch; McDowell’s Ghost