This Is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together
by Jon Mooallem
Narrated by Ray Porter
Why Listen?
Ray Porter's measured, authoritative voice transforms this true disaster story into something almost intimate—you're listening to a city come apart and one woman holding it together through a radio speaker, exactly as it happened.
About This Audiobook
When a catastrophic 9.2 earthquake strikes Anchorage, Alaska on Good Friday 1964, the young frontier city finds itself plunged into darkness and cut off from the outside world. Streets have cracked open, buildings have vanished into the earth, and residents face the terrifying unknown of what comes next. In the chaos that follows, an unlikely hero emerges: Genie Chance, a part-time radio reporter and working mother whose voice becomes the lifeline connecting a fractured community. Jon Mooallem reconstructs this pivotal moment when ordinary people confronted extraordinary circumstances and rebuilt their world from the ground up.
Ray Porter's masterful narration transforms this disaster story into an intimate human drama. His measured delivery captures both the urgency of the crisis and the quiet resilience of Alaskans piecing their lives back together. Porter navigates the ensemble cast of characters with distinct voices while maintaining the book's contemplative tone, allowing listeners to fully absorb Mooallem's rich reporting and lyrical prose. The audio format proves particularly powerful for a story centered on radio broadcasts, as Porter channels the crackling tension and comfort of Genie Chance's legendary transmissions that held a city together during its darkest hours.
