Author: Jackson Okoth
Available at: Catholic Bookshop , Book point
Retail Price: KES.350/=
The dedication at the beginning of the book reads: “This book is also dedicated to my daughters, Livia and Megan, who bore the brunt of my gambling addiction, and never stopped calling me ‘Daddy’” which betrays the honesty with which the book is written.
One need not read Jackson Okoth’s “Not a Chance” farther than the first chapter to discover the warmth and sincerity that leaps from each line which makes the book a rare and refreshingly honest read bereft of any “pretentions” of the modern writer that sometimes seeks to show might of the pen under the beloved Thesaurus and loses the reader in the process. There is no fancy language or fancy expressions in this book, but the simplicity of the writing in no way waters down the message but instead manages to deliver it in as real a manner as possible.
Not A Chance is the simple story of second chances, of the painful journey of addiction and the redemption at the very end. I will leave you to discover how the author got himself mixed up in gambling. It is a personal story of courage and conviction, and triumph over addiction.
The manner of storytelling in the novella is reminiscent of the storytellers in our forefather’s times . The reader often gets the impression that he is sitting around the fireplace, listening to the story being told orally.
Readers looking for an easy, richly informative and lesson-filled read will enjoy this book.
Literary Chronicles 