On the simplest level this novel is, as the cover blurb says, a "multigenerational family saga", moving from parents to their adult children to their adult grandchildren.
In part All This By Chance tells us much about how different generations of young New Zealanders have interpreted the big world called Overseas. Stephen in the 1940s, Lisa in the 1960s and a granddaughter in the 2000s react to Europe in very different ways.
More essential, though, is what the novel says about the hold that the past has over us, how the past shapes us whether we like it or not, and how lethal it can be to pretend uncomfortable parts of the past never happened. This novel is about time, remembrance and the persistence of family traits, even when they have been ignored.
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