A Matter of Happenstance

by Catherine Underhill Fitzpatrick

Catherine Fitzpatrick has used her keen reporter's eyes for detail and fashioned a sweeping saga of the wealthy Reinhardt family, St. Louis merchants who built a local retail empire over the course of a century... The characters vividly jump off the pages and pull you into their lives. Carol S. Cole , Former Features Editor,
St. Louis Globe-Democrat

An epic ... Writing it meant knowing vast amounts of information ... Many, many passages are strikingly beautiful, some scenes are memorable - so real they're painful to remember. Rose Marie Kinder , Editor Emerita, Pleiades ,
Winner, 1991 Willa Cather Award
Author of An Absolute Gentleman

I fell in love with several characters. A.Y. Stratton , Author of Buried Heart

With intelligent research and a fine feel for place, this book builds around its characters the kind of historical context that helps to explain how and why people see the world as they do. Eric Sandweiss , Carmony Chair, Department of History,
Indiana University, Author of St. The Evolution
of an Urban American Landscape

A rare and nearly perfect glimpse into a world long past. It's a well-researched first novel that will entertain, inform, and touch emotions for everyone. Kris Radish , Best Selling Bantam
Dell Author, www.krisradish.com

316 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2010

About the author

Catherine Underhill Fitzpatrick grew up in suburban St. Louis, the second of six children. After she graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism, her newspaper career included feature writing positions at metro dailies in Hannibal, St. Louis, and Milwaukee.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Catherine was in Manhattan to cover New York Fashion Week for Wisconsin’s largest newspaper. At first word of the terrorist attacks, she rushed to Ground Zero and filed award-winning eyewitness reports. A description of her reportage is included with accounts of other reporters and photographers in Running Toward Danger (2002, Rowman & Littlefield). A front page of the newspaper edition containing one of her 9/11 dispatches was among those memorialized in Washington D.C.’s Newseum. Her book-length account of her harrowing experiences that week has been accessioned into the State Historical Society of Missouri archives.

Catherine’s articles, stories, and essays have appeared in numerous newspapers, literary reviews, magazines, and anthologies. Her debut novel, A Matter of Happenstance, is a four-generation family saga that explores the power of personal character over coincidence. A follow-up novel, Going on Nine, is a coming-of-age story told by a young girl in 1956 and, alternately, by the mature woman she is today. Her third book is a family memoir, Voyage: A Memoir of Love, War, and Ever After. And her latest book-length work is the memoir Recorder of Deeds, Terrorism and Trauma: A Journalist's Life-Changing Choice on 911. All are available on www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com.

Catherine is a former board member of the TallGrass Writers Guild and an award-winning member of the Florida Writers Association and the Colorado Authors League. She and her husband, Dennis, live in Denver, CO. They have two daughters, two sons-in-law, and three grandchildren..

Reviews

[Janelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read it for a book club and it took forever to read it. I found it difficult to keep track of. The story was so drawn out and some characters that were really only bit players had too much time devoted to them. I constantly had to flip to the begining of the book where the "cast of characters" was listed to keep track of who was who.

[Vicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Billed as a sweeping saga but it's hardly that. Some recurring characters but overall far too many characters for a book this size with huge time gaps that make following along confusing. There is finally a link to the title after almost 200 pages, but even that is tenuous.

[KnitRelaxSmile · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the premise and the story itself are interesting, but reading was a chore.