This Is Chance!

The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held It Together

By: Jon Mooallem

Narrated by: Ray Porter

The thrilling, cinematic story of a community shattered by disaster—and the extraordinary woman who helped pull it back together

“A powerful, heart-wrenching book, as much art as it is journalism.”—The Wall Street Journal

“A beautifully wrought and profoundly joyful story of compassion and perseverance.”—BuzzFeed (Best Books of the Year)

In the spring of 1964, Anchorage, Alaska, was a modern-day frontier town yearning to be a metropolis—the largest, proudest city in a state that was still brand-new. But just before sundown on Good Friday, the community was jolted by the most powerful earthquake in American history, a catastrophic 9.2 on the Richter Scale. For four and a half minutes, the ground lurched and rolled. Streets cracked open and swallowed buildings whole. And once the shaking stopped, night fell and Anchorage went dark. The city was in disarray and sealed off from the outside world.

Slowly, people switched on their transistor radios and heard a familiar woman’s voice explaining what had just happened and what to do next. Genie Chance was a part-time radio reporter and working mother who would play an unlikely role in the wake of the disaster, helping to put her fractured community back together. Her tireless broadcasts over the next three days would transform her into a legendary figure in Alaska and bring her fame worldwide—but only briefly. That Easter weekend in Anchorage, Genie and a cast of endearingly eccentric characters—from a mountaineering psychologist to the local community theater group staging Our Town—were thrown into a jumbled world they could not recognize. Together, they would make a home in it again.

Drawing on thousands of pages of unpublished documents, interviews with survivors, and original broadcast recordings, This Is Chance! is the hopeful, gorgeously told story of a single catastrophic weekend and proof of our collective strength in a turbulent world.

There are moments when reality instantly changes—when the life we assume is stable gets upended by pure chance. This Is Chance! is an electrifying and lavishly empathetic portrayal of one community rising above the randomness, a real-life fable of human connection withstanding chaos.

Both informative & moving

I liked everything about this book. The parallels drawn between the lives and events of the earthquake and the style in which it is written and spoken

Great narrative on a historic event

The story is really well written and Ray Porter’s narration keeps you listening.

Highly recommended!

Biography? Elegy?

This is a consistently entertaining read, especially meaningful in the era of COVID-19. While the perspective on Chance’s life is predominantly that of her own and her family, the picture of her strengths and flaws comes through. It’s also a clear view into the omnipresent imperialism of the post war middle class which in Anchorage as in so many other places, built the American West.

The Earth moved and people held on

An excellent account of people’s thinking and behaviors following an extreme disaster. However, lil was discussed about the challenges and evolution of the physical recovery.

Excellent read of true life disaster

This book is the true story of a real life earthquake in Alaska in the 1960's. It brings you in to the story quickly and keeps you interested as you learn about the people. As things start to return to normal after the earthquake, the book loses some of its energy. It is extremely well researched and I recommend.