You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, an Accidental Lottery Winner [Paperback]

Lilian Duval (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2011

Tobias Hillyer had a promising future until a car accident claimed the lives of his parents. Abandoning his dreams, he dropped out of college to take care of his orphaned, brain-damaged younger brother. Now in his late thirties, Tobias must struggle to provide for his family, working dead-end jobs that fall far short of the academic career he had imagined.
Then he wins the lottery. His financial worries eliminated, Tobias anticipates nothing but smooth sailing ahead for himself and the people he loves. But he soon finds that his amazing stroke of luck may threaten everything he holds dear.
Over peaks and valleys, this uplifting journey will challenge everything we think we know about luck, life, and what we value most.
About the Author
Lilian Duval is the author of the forthcoming story collection Random Acts of Kindness. She is an amateur classical guitarist and a survivor of the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Lilian and her husband live in Ridgewood, New Jersey.
Praise for You Never Know
Does chance rule our lives? Or do we overcome chance and rule ourselves? Those are the questions that underlie You Never Know ... Duval's book reminds us all that even in the face of good luck we must continue to take both hardiness and happiness seriously; they come as much from inside as out.
-- Jay Thomas, PhD, Distinguished University Professor, School of Professional Psychology, Pacific University

Lilian Duval takes us on a spellbinding psychological journey through Tobias' human experience ... The author's literary description of the human psyche and the overwhelming emotions of this experience ... provide compelling and non-stop page-turning excitement!
-- Debbie Anderson, Writer, Producer, Director, and Author of Simple Rules for...The Road Warrior Princess

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

In this novel by a 9/11 survivor, chance plays a major role in the lives of two best friends—but character plays an even bigger one.

In 1989, promising college student Tobias Hillyer has just arrived home to spend Christmas with his condescending father, alcoholic mother and Simeon, his gifted and artistic younger brother. After a sudden and tragic accident, Tobias becomes his brother’s caretaker and, instead of returning to school, finds his academic future shredded. In contrast, Martin, his former college roommate and best friend, seems showered with good fortune, landing a high-paying job after college with Lehman Brothers in New York. The men keep in touch through a shared passion for tennis. Tobias, stuck in a low-paying job, marries Carmela, a psychiatric nurse he met as a result of the accident. Martin marries Valerie, and the years tick by. The couples, and eventually their children, stay close friends, despite the discrepancy in their incomes. On a whim, Tobias buys a Mega Millions lottery ticket and wins the jackpot—suddenly everything is reversed; Tobias and Carmela live out their fantasies while Martin faces bankruptcy. The allegedly lucky couple faces countless problems—kidnappers, acquaintances begging for money, jealousy and lack of trust. Still, Tobias has a guiding belief in what is truly important, making his story one of triumph rather than defeat. Aside from an occasional overabundance of “telling”—details from the wedding and honeymoon read like journal entries—the strong sense of story and pace makes this an eminently readable and inspiring narrative. Duval’s earnest, likable characters possess an inner strength they must put into play in moments of struggle. The author adds suspense by intimating how the characters may be impacted by the eventual terrorist attack on World Trade Center.

Achieves the neat trick of presenting moral values in a persuasive and uplifting way without being preachy or boring.

Review

From the National Book Critics Circle:

"You Never Know by Lilian Duval ($21.95, Wheatmark, Tucson, AZ) explores what happens when extraordinary things happen to ordinary people. The author is a survivor of the 9/11 attack and lives in New Jersey where the novel’s protagonist, Tobias Hillyer, has a life filled with both tragedy and extraordinary luck. This is a novel in which the characters intertwine in an ever-changing landscape of events, capped by Hillyer’s win of a MegaMillions lottery that, despite the millions involved, evoke a whole new set of problems. It an intriguing story filled with unexpected twists and turns."  -- Alan Caruba, Founding Member of the National Book Critics Circle

Money is something awesome to have, but it is not the cure of all wounds. You Never Know tells the story of Tobias who, through all his troubles, believes he finds his salvation in his sudden lottery win. But his blessing may soon collapse on himself, as he realizes what is truly important and must act very fast to make the most of it all. You Never Know is a solid novel of money and how much value it has in our lives.
-- Midwest Book Review


Have you ever read a book you didn't want to finish because it was so good? You Never Know is a book to devour in one night, but also to cherish and read slowly. --Emily Truman, Esq., Assistant Municipal Prosecutor, City of Newark, New Jersey

In her charming, fast-paced novel You Never Know, Duval asks the timeless question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" The answer for one suburban family is a resounding "Yes!"
--K.L. Stover, Novelist, Philosopher, Conceptual Artist

This novel's crucial dilemmas echo long after we have set the book down... while following the protagonist's footsteps, we soon realize that the tracks we are gazing on are our own.
--Huck Qavanaugh, Esq., Attorney and Writer from Cleveland, Ohio

Sometimes a single event can change the course of a person's life. Oftentimes, it's not the cards that are dealt but the way one chooses to play those cards that ultimately decides one's destiny.
--Dr. Abdel Salam Kaleel, MD, Physician, Columnist

What a book! I absolutely loved it; sat there and cried when I read the ending. You know it's good when you come to the end and say to yourself, "Wait, it's over? So soon? I want more!"
--Gerry Anderson, Retired, Award-Winning Teacher

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: Wheatmark (March 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1604945206
• ISBN-13: 978-1604945201
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.8 x 5.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,680,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lilian Duval was born in New York City to French-speaking parents and went to public school with a French accent so thick that she was assigned to the slowest of four first-grade classes. "Thunder, not TUNDER!" the teacher scolded her in front of the class. "Mother, not MUDDER!"

"I got rid of my accent all right," Lilian says in perfectly generic American English. "I also gained a lifetime habit of imitating people's pronunciation. One of these days someone is going to punch me in the nose for that!"

She continues, "In those days, nobody worried about kids' self-esteem. Medals for everybody? Forget about it! And those classrooms--they were labeled 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4. You knew where you stood from Day One."

Undeterred, her mother cajoled the principal into moving Lilian to class 1-1, where she spent her extra class time making up little stories in the margins of her schoolwork. The teacher in P.S. 89 was not happy about those marked-up papers and let her know it.

"Things got better in the third grade," she remembers. There was a school-wide writing contest at her elementary school in North Bellmore, Long Island. The topic was libraries. "I was pretty hopeless at sports," Lilian admits. "If someone threw a ball, I ducked. But I liked books." In her essay, she wrote that books in the library were like houses on a street, and the rows of shelves were like roads. The rest of her metaphors were good enough to win her the first prize, presented at a school assembly: the book "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson. "I read it over and over, but was disappointed because I'd really wanted a trophy, like the athletes got."

That contest was the beginning of Lilian's writing career. Along the way she has held an improbable array of jobs. Here are some of them, in chronological order: Nurse's aide in a nursing home at age 16, where her specialty was emptying bedpans. Bookkeeper's assistant at O. Henry Steak House in Greenwich Village. Suburban reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts, where a highlight was a report on the local pickle factory. Teacher of English as a second language to Indochinese refugees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Instructor of computer programming at a professional school.

And, for 16 years, computer software developer for a long string of financial institutions in New York City, culminating with Lehman Brothers in the World Trade Center.

On September 11, 2001, Lilian was on a NJ Transit commuter train heading to New York when the terrorist attacks took place. Arriving at Hoboken Terminal, passengers were told to board trains and return home. All the PATH trains and ferries were carrying people one way only--west across the river to New Jersey.

Lilian's husband, George, was already in his office at a brokerage firm on the 25th floor of One World Trade Center. "We couldn't call him. He couldn't call us. We panicked and couldn't do anything." Not until 2:00 p.m. did she and their three grown children learn that he'd escaped on foot across the Brooklyn Bridge while the towers were crumbling. Five days later, he revealed to his family that he'd been invited to a technology meeting at Windows on the World on the 107th floor that morning, but was so busy with administrative duties that he'd forgotten to attend.

"For two weeks after the attack, everyone at Lehman cried, hugged, and comforted one another," she recalls. "We were installed across the Hudson River in Jersey City and crammed together into small cubicles. Our windows faced the Manhattan shoreline, where we watched smoke rising from the collapsed towers for weeks. It was devastating."

Then the programmers were moved to midtown Manhattan and seated in the middle of a trading floor. It was chaotic. With 400 traders standing on their feet and yelling into their phones all day, writing a line of coherent software code was almost impossible. "So I went to Staples, bought a sheet of poster board, and set up a barrier between me and the guy opposite me at this long, narrow table. I could still hear him, but at least I couldn't see him jumping and gesticulating."

That act of defiance marked the end of her programming career. Fired from Lehman ("that was easy!")--while there still was a Lehman--she became a technical writer for a software company and continued writing fiction on the side--lots of fiction. Her two books, You Never Know and the forthcoming Random Acts of Kindness, were inspired in part by those shattering events and a passion to capture what life means to us all.

Lilian Duval lives with her husband George, a native of Singapore, in a small house in New Jersey overlooking a large county park. They have two sons and a daughter, all independent and ambitious, and several cats. She's an amateur classical guitarist and enjoys attending concerts and plays in New York City.

But writing has always been her calling. In her own words, "The most enjoyable activity I can imagine is to invent some characters, make them a little larger than life, set them bickering and thrashing against each other and their fates, and enact a fictional resolution that makes more sense than the chaos and unpredictability of our complicated lives."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars What a book! I absolutely loved it! March 7, 2011

By Gerry Anderson

Format:Paperback

You Never Know. No truer words have ever been spoken. This profound statement and philosophy is proven over and over again in Lilian Duval's novel, You Never Know. The book begins with Tobias Hillyer returning home for winter break from college for a dreaded holiday visit with his family. The only bright spot in this obligatory visit is his brother Simeon, five years his junior. Early on in life, Tobias earned the role of his brother's keeper, filling the void of their mother, who was an alcoholic.

On the way home from a holiday dinner at a local restaurant, the unexpected happens. A van careens through a red light at an intersection and crashes into their vehicle, killing both of Tobias's parents and causing his brother a serious head injury resulting in brain damage. Now Tobias is faced with a life-altering decision. Does he dedicate himself to the lifelong care of his younger brother, or does he follow his dream by pursuing his calling in the field of anthropology? In order to devote himself completely to the care of his brother, Tobias must turn his back on his studies and throw away the chance of a lifetime to participate in a fellowship and study indigenous people in South America. Almost unable to cope with the guilt of extinguishing Simeon's bright future and taking away his artistic talent, Tobias vows to dedicate himself to his brother's lifelong care.

This is the first glimpse of Tobias's strength of character that is shown. It is this strength of character and sense of morals that seems to govern every other alteration of his life and the lives of those around him. Although Tobias chose to end his education abruptly, his friendship with his former college roommate, Martin, continues throughout the trials and tribulations of their lives, maintaining their healthy rivalry in tennis as a means to cope with their changing financial positions in life.

As Simeon continues on his excruciatingly slow progress of healing, Tobias continues plodding along, barely able to earn enough money to meet the financial demand of his brother's care and the maintenance of their family home. As another testament to Tobias's undying dedication to his brother, he is blessed with the continued friendship of one of Simeon's nurses. The love, support and loyalty of their friendship gradually develops into a lifetime commitment to each other, and in time, they are blessed with two children of their own. Carmela shares Tobias's love and dedication to his brother, leaving Simeon to claim his own place in their family as an uncle/sibling to their twins. Although the Hillyers struggle continuously financially, they manage to prioritize the needs of their family, providing them with love and a stable, supportive family.

All the while that Tobias is struggling financially with minor raises in salary and promotion at the bookstore, Martin climbs the ladder of success in the corporate world. It becomes a strain in their friendship. After losing many of his employees as a result of the events of 9-11 and the collapse of the World Trade Center, Martin decides to invest in a new business. He realizes that with Tobias's skills and integrity, he would be an asset to this business, and Tobias soon becomes an integral part of Martin's success.

One evening Tobias misses his scheduled train, and a series of very coincidental events occur, leading Tobias to purchase a lottery ticket. Once again, these events seem to occur as a result of Tobias's goodwill and strength of character. Not lending much credibility to luck and his chances of winning, Tobias disregards the ticket and shoves it into his briefcase. Much to his surprise, he ends up winning more than two hundred million dollars after taxes.

This tremendous windfall proves near ruin for Tobias's life, while the effects of the recession are leaving friends and family in financial devastation. Friends and family begin asking Tobias for help in rescuing their businesses through substantial loans. Relationships with friends begin to change and deteriorate. The newly found notoriety brings many unexpected problems. Expectations of Tobias's new-found wealth begin to taint his decisions and cause him to lose perspective. At first, he and Carmela react with expectations of happiness through money, but are soon disillusioned, leading to the near destruction of their supposedly intact family. Through all of this, there remains one constant in Tobias's life: Simeon, who manages to accept the wealth with no expectations or demands on his brother. Only after the horrific kidnapping of his daughter does Tobias understand that money is not the answer to the fulfillment of life and the pursuit of happiness.

Only after the family survives this one, final devastation do they huddle together to protect one another and re-establish the foundation they once had. And only this time do they understand the true needs of their family and exactly what it takes to find true happiness. After the twins are assigned a genealogy project at school, they unlock the past of their grandparents and their father and uncle's ability to accept that past and use that knowledge to enhance their own lives. Simeon surfaces as the unexpected hero of this story by realizing his own happiness and success as a result of his own efforts. As he leaves the nest to embark on his own life journey, Simeon leaves the family with a gift that brings the Hillyer family full circle and grants Tobias inner peace.

Lilian Duval tells the tale of Tobias in a poignant and bittersweet style, leaving the reader's senses satisfied with a complete experience through her descriptive and detailed writing. The reader is left with a true sense of fulfillment after reading the story of the Hillyer family. Each character unfolds to be held near and dear to our hearts, leaving us with a different life lesson to be learned from each one. While reading the final few pages, I found myself with tears of happiness running down my face, sharing in the final happiness and emotional closure of each member of the family. Especially near and dear to my heart remained Simeon, who gave every ounce of his being to his family while expecting nothing in return.

Ms. Duval possesses an ability to write in a style that flows and naturally builds the complexity of the characters and plot while making the reader feel entrenched in the story and connected with each character in a different and personal way. The story of Tobias, the incidental winner in You Never Know, leaves the reader to answer the questions: Is it luck, coincidence, or a predestined path that is set out for our lives? Or is it simply karma and positive energy? Do you attain happiness through fulfilling your own needs and meeting your own personal goals, or is it through what you can do for others that leaves you with a feeling of fulfillment and happiness? Does the positive energy that you put out into the world come back to you in the form of good karma in your life?

"When this or that happens, then I'll be happy. It was never now; it was always later. Maybe happiness is forever anticipating being happy." These were Tobias's thoughts in the beginning of the story. After all of the events that were placed on the path of life for him, Tobias came to learn that true happiness does not occur as a result of what you are given or what happens in your life. Nor is it attained through your own personal accomplishments or goals that you set out for yourself to attain. It is how you choose to react to the events in your life and what you chose to do with the gifts in life that bring true happiness. One must live each day of his life to the fullest because, after all, You Never Know.

By Gerry Anderson, a Retired, Award-Winning Elementary Teacher Specializing in Literature and Writing.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Smart, Witty, and Intelligent Piece of Literature! March 14, 2011

By Debbie Anderson

Format:Paperback

In her new novel, You Never Know, author Lilian Duval challenges readers to address philosophical questions about life and how one can never truly know the path of one's own course and direction in life, while emphasizing the poignant truth about human nature's desire to stay true to oneself, no matter the struggles placed before you.

The book starts out in a writing style that is reflective of college-age Tobias' nonsensical adolescent and simplistic view of life, with its literary brilliance slowly developing a more complicated sophistication that grows as young Tobias' life transforms from a metaphoric black and white view of his circumstances to his many shades of gray human emotion.

When a short-term holiday visit home from college turns into tragedy during Christmastime, Tobias is faced with the first of an unrelenting series of life questions to be answered: What does it really mean to stay true to oneself?

With his parents now dead and his brother, Simeon, in a coma, does young Tobias stay true to himself by going on a once-in-a-lifetime academic trip to South America and continuing to work his way up the ranks as a collegiate athlete; or does being true to oneself mean giving up on his academic and athletic pursuits, and instead, exchanging these ideologies of staying true to oneself for a different answer to this question?

Tobias spends sleepless nights struggling to answer the question: Is it better to forgo societal definitions of achievement and instead hold true to his principles about being there for someone who defines inherent wealth in life--his brother; or should he stay his current course in life and climb his way to the top academically, in spite of overwhelming personal life challenges?

Duval further asks readers to explore their own truisms about whether our decisions in life are based on being true to oneself, or is our direction in life merely chosen and based on decisions that are made out of guilt? These questions are explored as she unfolds the story of Tobias' struggle to take care of his mentally challenged brother, who has sustained a severe brain injury through no fault of Tobias' actions on that fateful night.

When bad luck happens, life forces one to choose; it also presents little gifts to us, as Tobias experiences through his relationship with his brother's nurse, Carmela. Duval creates a compelling and intriguing character, Carmela, who acts as a catalyst and safe haven for Tobias, as he watches his best friend, Martin, succeed where Tobias, himself, has not.

Duval further asks, and answers, these questions in the reader's mind as she takes us on a spellbinding psychological journey through Tobias' human experience, when he is faced with the realization that he is to become a father, not only to one child, but to twins! Already strapped down financially and under great pressure by the obligations of taking care of his brother, Tobias finds himself once again faced with a decision on how he will play the new cards he has been dealt by life. The author's literary description of the human psyche and the overwhelming emotions of this experience, when Tobias embraces such a large, new, and obligatory life challenge, offer compelling and non-stop page-turning excitement!

While the page-turning continues, You Never Know sets us on a course to discover that through tragedy and the unexpected in life, many of life's blessings come through struggle, and unfolds the tale of good luck triumphing over bad luck and hardship; while reminding us that oftentimes, what we perceive to be good luck, might also transform itself into bad luck after Martin, who appears to have everything, is faced with an overwhelming challenge of his own.

As life and luck change, and as our young Tobias grows into a much stronger man, Duval once again asks the reader to question one's own life: What does it mean to really do "better," and does "doing better in life" mean that we actually have control over some things?

When Tobias finally finds himself the recipient of a gift from the universe that seems to be the answer to all of life's financial challenges for him, good luck appears to become bad, because money doesn't necessarily "fix" everything. Once again, Tobias finds himself challenged to answer one question: What does it mean for him to be true to himself?

With more money come more troubles, though with money, Tobias can now take care of the challenges that once overburdened his days and nights when he was struggling to take care of the brother he loves, the wife he cherishes, and the children he adores ... that is -- until trauma and tragedy appear again in his life.

After recovering from the fear of nearly losing everything he holds most precious in this world--the safety of his family and the health of his marriage--Tobias, nearing middle age, is forced by life to reassess his priorities: Does socioeconomic status really lead to true happiness, or is true happiness something other than what socioeconomic means can truly provide in one's own life?

Duval closes this compelling and intriguing work of fiction, as we discover Tobias' full character arc and journey in learning to live, love, and grow while exploring the values and principles of staying true to oneself and what it means to "do the right thing," no matter the odds and challenges that life throws in the way of achieving what one wants.

You Never Know is a smart, witty, and intelligent piece of literature that will prompt you to delve into these varying questions within your own life: Is good luck always a good thing--or can bad luck become good luck too?

By Debbie Anderson, a Writer, Producer, and Director, and Author of
Simple Rules for ... The Road Warrior PrincessSimple Rules for...The Road Warrior Princess: "Thee" Women's Inspirational Guide To Embracing The Open Road!!!
Simple Rules for...The Road Warrior Princess: "Thee" Women's Inspirational Guide To Embracing The Open Road!!!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Is He Swimming in Money, or Drowning? March 8, 2011

By Cleveland Writer

Format:Paperback

Where should I live? Am I ready for children? How would I spend millions? How much of my resources should I use to help others? These are questions Lilian Duval's new novel, You Never Know, invites us to ponder. But the book goes beyond the pragmatic sensibility and interrogates our psyche: How much human interaction will I sacrifice for the sake of safety and privacy? Do I pursue my own dreams or nurse a relative who cannot care for himself? Are my decisions motivated by healthy desire or toxic guilt? What will I choose for myself when faced with adversity?

Our perseverant protagonist, Tobias, struggles as we all seem to do with day-to-day finances, family dysfunction, and career goals. A tragic, fatal accident aggravates these concerns until one day on a busy railroad platform he takes the time from his demanding life to perform a random act of kindness. For, as Duval later writes while describing the stark antitheses that comprise New York City, "magic arises of its own accord, from ordinary people doing small, unexpected things." Immediately afterward, as if instant karma were at play, a God-like stranger encourages Tobias to buy a lottery ticket.

Not only does the ticket win, it wins hugely. "All his worries are over," the narrator relates of Tobias's errant thoughts. Indeed, from that point on, our understanding of Tobias crescendos as he leaps each hurdle big money tosses into his path.

Jean-Paul Sartre claimed that we define ourselves through our actions and the choices we make. Existence precedes essence, he says: first we just are, then through our decisions we acquire qualities, our "essence." Duval, herself a French speaker of Belgian ancestry, bolsters this philosophic tradition with a new novel whose vital characters easily leave their fictional setting to inhabit the reader's room and whose crucial dilemmas echo in the back of our mind long after we have set the book down. For while following the protagonist's footsteps and those of his family, we soon realize the tracks we are gazing upon are our own.

If, according to existential philosophy, a person is defined by the decisions she makes and her interaction with the world she suffers and thrives in, then it can be maintained that the determinism-versus-free-will argument is, in a sense, irrelevant, for according to this proposition each person is either predestined to be defined by certain decisions or else defines himself reactively. Regardless of which side of the debate we endorse, we are easily engaged by the decision-making alone. That is, even if self-definition is illusory, we can still be entertained by the process, just as Sisyphus was amused--in Camus' rendition of the myth--at his repeatedly fruitless exertions to roll a boulder up a hill only to see it roll back down again. We are not surprised, then, when Tobias and his wife hope their child "could be influenced to choose well, rather than just fall wherever life threw him." This is a philosophy to which Tobias and wife adhere when they forgo an ostentation or two, when they write off a bad loan with no hard feelings toward their debtor, and when they let their philanthropic focus trump any animosity lingering from a soured friendship.

Thus, key to our sense of self is not chance events but our reaction to them. You Never Know gives the reader a diverting opportunity to watch people define themselves as they react to a phenomenal chance event. How could determinism better assert itself than with an extremely unlikely lottery win? And how could free will better riposte than with a human conquering of the circumstances?

You Never Know embodies that premise: As a V-formation of geese flies overhead, Tobias's friend, Martin, describes Tobias as being irreligious: "He doesn't believe in destiny or eternal life. He tries to value his present life." In fact, each moment for Tobias is the "v" of a decision tree: this or that, me or him, Kierkegaard's Either/Or. Tobias's love interest then says to Martin: "I'm concerned that this long interruption of his education will make him lose sight of the person he wanted to become." But it is equally valid to observe that, given the new decisions--and hence alternatives--thrust upon Tobias, the old paradigm is obsolete: he wants to be someone other than who he wanted to be before.

More important than the voyeurism found in most fiction is how Duval's novel continually challenges its readers to imagine themselves participating in this dance of self-definition. In order to do that, the novel must generate in the hearts and minds of its audience a genuine empathy for the novel's protagonist and those around him, for no bond better asserts mathematical identity between existential identities than empathy and its wizardry of enabling one person to feel what happened to another.

And You Never Know does that well. We care whether Tobias finds his freedom or falls prey to determinism, we care how a brain-damaged artist learns to express himself again, and we care when a long-dead mother manages to speak to her progeny.

You Never Know achieves its unique empathy in part through its devotion to realism. Duval's skillful hand elevates otherwise unnoticed details of a daily calendar to still life: what she paints textually serves to put flesh on the bones of her characters; to draw us into those characters' lives; and to illustrate that the path to self-definition is continual, consisting of many small but essential moments that make existence life. Meanwhile, her metaphors resound with insight: "In Carmela's philosophy, peace of mind was the difference between getting dressed in the dark while hoping that everything matched and turning on the lights above a three-way mirror to see for sure."

Duval's realism is conveyed through a clear and unadorned prose that calmly transports us to her world, a crisp syntax that delivers its content quickly, and a panoply of character stimuli: dialogue, informed narrative, internal monologue, and plot points mundane and catastrophic. Here are examples: "She tore off a corner of bread and dunked it in the soup." "Valerie, slender in a slinky black dress, opened a handbag containing Pampers, pacifiers, baby toys, a pocket photo album, and little else." "You're getting your baby. I hope you don't destroy us all in the process."

The detailed account of the characters' existence lends us a strong familiarity with them and their good character as they struggle through their quandaries; it also helps us like them. Consequently, we not only know Duval's crew, we live with them for a spell--and, even more remarkably, we feel sadness, disappointment, and glee as their lives unfold before our eyes like so many Monarchs leaving the chrysalis. Just as any observer must marvel at the length of the butterfly's legs, the breadth of its wingspan emerging from so small a cocoon, one wonders also at the depth of character developed from so tiny a moment as buying a lottery ticket.

The novel's questions and our stabs at answers continue to reverberate in the dark. What will you choose for yourself when faced with adversity? Well, until the situation presents itself, and although you like to imagine otherwise, you never know.