Review of “To Outwit the Fate” by K.E. Adamus

Score: 94/100 (9.4 out of 10)

To Outwit the Fate is a morbidly fascinating absurdist fiction novel by K.E. Adamus, the award-winning author of the short-story collection, LOSERS!

In a similar vein to Adamus's short-story collection, To Outwit the Fate follows a lifelong disappointment and loser, Matt, as he finds a way to climb out of the shadow of his meager past only to make a bad situation even worse!

Matt's dismal yet sympathetic character is impressively established throughout the earlier pages of the book. His dreams of becoming an engineer and building robots seems like a big flop. His parents tell him that he can't make a living turning screws.

His academic journey is filled with aspirations but marred by his circumstances. He initially holds ambitious goals, such as completing his studies, attending a good college, and possibly opening his own business to secure a prosperous future. Despite his determination to rise above mediocrity, Matt struggles to find clarity regarding what he wants to study or the specific path he should pursue .

However, Matt's bad luck and decisions frequently derail his goals. For example, he intends to study psychology but misses the entrance exam due to oversleeping as a roommate removed the batteries from his alarm clock. How frustrating!

This setback forces him to shift his focus to cultural studies. After choosing cultural studies, Matt initially does well, but a series of unfortunate events, including a fine for not having a tram ticket and a vomit incident at the supermarket, causes him to lose motivation and focus.

A family funeral further disrupted his ability to attend makeup exams, leading to his removal from the student list. Matt then struggles to find a job after being removed from the student list, facing multiple rejections. Even when he finally secures an interview, a pigeon poops on him just before the meeting, leading to a poor first impression and another rejection. It was at this point when we really felt for Matt and got behind him (at least temporarily). One particular thing about this interview process hit a nerve and seemed familiar: how inconsiderate the employer/interviewer was.

The interviewer apparently knew their spots were filled, but they made Matt come in anyway (or forgot/neglected to call off his interview). We've all been there and done that. We've all experienced people being inconsiderate to us and wasting our time.

This is par for the course in the life of Matt.

To make matters even worse, Matt brings up in an ex-girlfriend, Monica, around his best-friend/girlfriend/only friend (and—from what we gathered—also his roommate), Alicia, which causes her to pull a knife on him and chase him out! DANG!

With nowhere else to go (except maybe back to his parents with his tail between his legs and the meager prospect of being forced to work in his dad's food processing factory), Matt believes he has found an out: Pelagia Metlicka.

Pelagia is an elderly intellectual/pseudo-intellectual woman who lives alone and seems to just want company—particularly someone to share her philosophical musing about fate with. Pelagia champions the thesis that “everyone is the blacksmith of their fate.” Ironically, this flies in the face of Matt's beliefs that fate is out of his hands and that all of his misfortunes are due to bad luck.

Anyway, seeing this as an opportunity for free or cheap room & board, Matt jumps on it and moves on in. Pelagia effectively becomes Matt's sponsor.

It is strongly implied (if not explicitly stated) that Pelagia is sexually interested and possibly even exploitative and abusive of Matt. She constantly demands his attention, even calling him over and over again while he's asleep, showing possessive, controlling behavior.

As fate would have it, Pelagia suddenly DIES. Well, to be more specific, she's found dead by Matt.
Panicking, frazzled, and not knowing what else to do, he conceals Pelagia's body in the large meat freezer in the house.

Matt has flurry of feelings, thoughts, and emotions. He fears possibly being accused of murder and/or losing the home/benefits. Speaking of benefits, he also realizes that Pelagia will continue to receive payments via her pension, something which peaks his unscrupulous interest.

And this is when Matt's heel-turn begins. This once-sympathetic character becomes increasingly immoral and unhinged as he seeks to take advantage of the tragic situation.

He starts to consider ways to rid himself of the evidence by disposing of the corpse. He considers dismembering and mutilating the body, pulling teeth and small the skull to disfigure it, burning it to ashes, throwing it into the reservoir (which could contaminate the water supply, and even dropping it off at a sausage factory!

Pelagia goes from being a person—a human being—to paramount to an inanimate object and a inconvenience. And Matt's humanity slowly seems to whither away, and a selfish/self-serving person emerges.

As uncomfortable as this may sound, it's also morbidly fascinating.

Matt is in too deep and reaches a point of no return. He tries to pass off a facade of being a hard-working individual who earns his keep by becoming a waiter, making a hollow attempt to appeal to the “social norm” that “money is gained by working.”

He even drags his best-friend/kinda-girlfriend/former roommate, Ala (Alicia) into this, discovering that she has some skeletons in her closet and deep, dark secrets too. Ala, it turns out, is a mythomaniac—a perpetual liar and yarn-weaver.

It seems like no matter what Matt does, he can't escape the dark shadow of cruel fate or—as is often reiterated and emphasized throughout the book—his bad luck.

This is a book full of hijinks and shenanigans (the good kind, mostly)!

It's also a book full of compelling, ironic, and thought-provoking quotes and passages like:

“...as a humanist, you will lose any battle with engineers’ kind of minds”

“...lousy luck had left me.” (Note: alliteration and personification)

“...bad luck doesn't give up” (Note: personification)

“Sometimes the less one knows, the better one sleeps”

“Most often, those with naturally straight hair curl it,and those with curly hair straighten it.”

That last one is probably our favorite in the book. Despite seeming innocuous and lighthearted, it says a lot about superficiality and artificiality—changing who you are to fit into a peg. That's pretty much what Matt and Ala do throughout the book.

The book also has an aura of mystery, especially as we try to get to the bottom of who Pelagia was. Also, who is this mysterious Jan Metlicki person who keeps trying to get in touch with her?

Check it out on Amazon!