Synopsis "Blind Chance"
Set against the backdrop of the counterculture of the 1960s, Blind Chance is about love, drugs, will, pain, purpose, alienation and the need to belong to some kind of human community. The main character, Lupe Figueroa, is a thirty-year-old blind ex-graduate student. Through a chance meeting with a pot-smoking nineteen-year-old, he becomes enmeshed in the drug-saturated counterculture of the 1960s. Lupe is bitter and angry at the sighted world for discounting him before he was even given a chance. He personifies the desires of much of mankind, wanting his share of love, power, happiness, and money. Although the characters in the novel come together as drug dealers, the ties that bind them go beyond the sale of drugs. For so long the characters were on the outside looking in, but because Lupe has access to drugs, they come to him to score, and find a space where they can belong. Although many of the themes of the novel may be disturbing, its tone is irreverent, at times outrageously funny, and often lyrical. For anyone interested in the underground world of the sixties, it's a great read.
