Aging cancer survivor and business consultant Calder Brandt has staked everything on making partner. But a bullying boss views his sales success as a personal threat, while the firm's feckless Leadership looks the other way. When his partner bid fails, Calder, humiliated and apoplectic, spirals into desperation and alcohol-soaked despair. How will he tell his wife? Younger and Bosnian, Hana feels adrift in an overwhelming America. Their relationship's sole center of gravity is an old Weimaraner named Darwin. Terrified by her husband's failing health and the prospect of widowhood, Hana takes a retail bank job and an interest in her one friend's husband. Meanwhile, Calder's client work unravels; hints at internal sabotage mount. As the base ruthlessness of colleagues begins to emerge, so do the primal forces that drive him. His battle to salvage both dignity and career deteriorates into a thirst for vengeance, leading to unexpected revelations about his past, his world, and himself. Destiny and Other Follies is a darkly comic, gritty yet humane portrait of misdirected lives in our corporatized age. Venters succeeds in hurtling his readers into a challenging world and making them sharply aware of the characters' struggles. The novel explores, in depth, the darkness of the corporate world, strained marriages, and the way an inevitable inner battle with one's past shapes perception, beliefs, and personal interactions. Venters' writing is deeply reflective and philosophical. The question Venters asks, "How can we hope to thrive in a corporatized and disconnected world where 'humane' has lost all meaning?" is one that will haunt you long after you close the book. While the dense language is often challenging to read and the range of characters may confuse at times, this work is intensely thought-provoking. Venters litters his story with a little dark humour. His analogies are skilful, and his rich exploration of Calder's emotions and the power dynamics of the corporate world invigorates passages describing the more mundane mechanics of the business world. Though not particularly rich in suspense or drama, Destiny and Other Follies is a novel that lovers of highbrow literary fiction rich in gritty realism will enjoy, and definitely one for those who appreciate deep philosophical introspection and extrospection Lorraine Cobcroft, Reedsy Discovery This lengthy philosophical debut recounts the midlife anguish of Calder Brandt, an industrial consultant perpetually thwarted in his career goals at Scientific Management... Meanwhile, his Bosnian banker wife Hana suffers from his neglect and endures professional struggles of her own. Venters's skillful analogies and descriptive writing sometimes steal the spotlight from the plot, but, along with the richness of Calder's emotions, they also serve to invigorate the mechanics of corporate life: business meetings, email threads, the explanations of proposals. Despite the challenge of tracking the story's large cast, Venters ensures they are realistic, relatable, and grounded in contemporary corporate power dynamics, with developments like Calder's poor health post-throat cancer becoming their own character. As his physical condition constantly challenges his ability to express himself, both literally and figuratively, it also lends the novel's events a serious tone. Venters shines in his depiction of characters locked in an isolation of their own making on the brink of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hana's loneliness, expressed in her own point-of-view segments sprinkled throughout Calder's narrative... mirrors his inability to connect meaningfully with others, and their petty marital bickering is realistically rendered. "Nice guys finish last" is this story's melancholy anthem, and readers of highbrow literary fiction will cheer as Calder defies backstabbing colleagues and stubbornly trudges after his career dreams against the cold inner workings of his industry. BookLife Reviews What happens when a cancer survivor, facing a world where business has become personal, wants more than merely to survive? A psychological tale of suspense about a career gone wrong, this debut novel follows business consultant Calder Brandt as he defies backstabbing colleagues in his pursuit of promotion. His struggle is mirrored by his young Bosnian wife, Hana. Her own work challenges and loneliness reveal a marriage locked in an isolation of its own making, one held together only by a shared devotion to their Weimaraner, Darwin. Set against the impersonal backdrop of high-stakes consulting and the grim reality of deteriorating health, the story asks: How can we hope to thrive in a corporatized and disconnected world where humane has lost all meaning? Gregory Venters was born in Northern Virginia and grew up outside Annapolis. He received a BA in Philosophy from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and did brief stints in the US Navy and for various corporations. After earning an MBA from