These two companion novels tell the stories of Jack and Brenda Bowman during a rare time apart in their many years of marriage. In The Husband's Story, Jack is at home coping with domestic crises and two uncouth adolescents while immobilised by self-doubt and questioning his worth as a historian. In The Wife's Story, Brenda, travelling alone for the first time, is in a strange city grappling with an array of emotions and toying with the idea of an affair. Intimate and insightful yet never sentimental, Happenstance is a profound portrait of a marriage, and the differences between the sexes that bring life - and a sense of isolation - into even the most loving of relationships.