The Reluctant Fortune-Teller

In a small tourist town, an old man named Norbert is out of money, with bills piling up. Carlotta, the town busybody, makes it her “club’s” job to get Norbert back on his feet. Carlotta and her friends, Margaret and Birdie, decide to turn Norbert into the town fortune-teller, teaching him how to read meaning into a deck of playing cards.

While reluctant, as the title suggests, Norbert quickly grows to enjoy his new job. Norbert meets his share of cynics as word of his uncanny talent grows.

The story is calm, sweet, and inoffensive, showing the shenanigans of a group of retirees and how their different personalities relate to one another. Nothing about it, even the action at the end, is particularly harrowing or intense. I was surprised at how complicit Margaret and Birdie were in some of Carlotta’s more boorish antics and that in forty years of knowing her she was never called out for her behavior. I expected her to get her comeuppance, but she did not.

The Reluctant Fortune Teller shows that it’s never too late to change the course of your life for the better.