Touched by Fortune's Shadow: a triptych

“The sheer brilliance and sprezzatura of Quinn Jackson’s ideas, and his ability to articulate these in fluid, gorgeous, and startlingly original prose and poetry, will capture and hold your attention.”—Dania Sheldon, editor of Touched by Fortune’s Shadow

Vancouver, 1998. From his mountain-view Coal Harbor penthouse, Brett Lloyd-Ronan leads a quiet, highly ordered life as co-founder and chief analyst of a thriving quantitative analysis firm. Born into a blue-collar world where opportunity rarely came knocking, he has made patterns and predictability his twin anchors while using his distinctive intellect and skills to navigate the chaotic seas of trading, portfolio hedging, and market modeling.

But when the woman he has loved from afar over many years reappears and sails into his sheltered cove, Brett finds that his days will never again begin the same way twice. And the patterns become even more elaborately unpredictable as a retired concert pianist challenges Brett to make abstractions real, and to speak and act when silence and caution may feel safer.

Touched by Fortune’s Shadow: a triptych is a work of tranquil turmoil. While Brett has found sanctuary and wealth in the fiscal world of risk and margin, at life’s heart remain human relationships in which interests and emotions sometimes align, sometimes collide, and never conform to logic. Will Brett, like the Huma bird of legend, remain perpetually in auspicious flight? Or is there a place of truth where he can land and be his fully authentic self?