David Contosta has been teaching history at Chestnut Hill College for 51 years. He’s also likely the most prolific author in the area. On March 27, Contosta released his 26th book and first work of fiction, “Happenstance.” It's a wonderfully engaging opus that reminds one of the soap opera-ish Victorian multigenerational family novels by Dickens, Trollope and George Eliot.

Contosta summarizes the book this way: “During a going-away party at a sleazy, smoke-filled Greenwich Village restaurant in New York during the early summer of 1916, 27-year-old Ellen Montgomery, who has been living and working at a settlement house in New York City, reminisces about her many adventures in the city with friends. They have picketed sweatshops in the garment industry, marched for women’s votes, protested against the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and the sinking of the Titanic as examples of corporate greed, and denounced World War I as a capitalist plot.” 

Soon after becoming director of a progressive orphanage for girls near Philadelphia, Ellen recruits Jane Williams, a close friend from settlement house days, as the orphanage nurse. The two begin a “marriage” in everything but name. Unexpectedly, they learn they must parent Jane’s niece, Susan, and grandparent Susan’s baby daughter, Jo.

Fiction from fact

“My grandfather told me stories I used in the book,” Contosta said in a recent interview with the Local. “People were riding buggies as teenagers. Some of the stories in the book were real experiences but not all. I made up some characters out of whole cloth. … I had a lot of fun writing it. There are some current events from that era, 1916 to 1938. Think Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.  

“I know the period so well because I've been teaching it for years. My grandparents were born in the 1880s, and so were the main characters in the book. Some of it takes place in Flourtown. I changed the names of some things. The Carson Valley School, for example, becomes the Sanders School. Flourtown becomes Spring Hill.”

In recent years, I have read two of Contosta's books, “The Private Life of James Bond” (about a real-life Chestnut Hill resident named James Bond, whose name was borrowed by author Ian Fleming for his legendary “007” James Bond character) and “America's Needless Wars,” a brilliant examination of atrocious foreign policy disasters that should be read by every U.S. president and general.

Contosta grew up in central Ohio and came to Philadelphia when he was offered the job at CHC in 1974. He still teaches four courses a semester and is an eminent historian. His curriculum vitae would take up at least 20 pages. 

His books include biographies of Henry Adams, Charles Darwin, and Abraham Lincoln, as well as tomes about religious institutions, higher education, urban and suburban history, including the history of Chestnut Hill and the Woodward and Houston families. Contosta has also written, co-produced, and appeared in several documentary films. The author led numerous walking tours in the Chestnut Hill area and often gave talks to community groups. He received the Chestnut Hill Community Association Award in 2005. 

He has lectured at Nanjing University in China and at Pyeongtaek University in South Korea. A recipient of the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, Contosta was a Fulbright Scholar in France and a visiting research professor at Cambridge University in England.

Why is Contosta's latest book titled “Happenstance”? “It's because so many things in the book are happenstance,” he replied. “All our lives are like that. For example, if I hadn't taken the job at Chestnut Hill College so many years ago, we would not be sitting here now … I have to write a sequel to see what happens to all of these characters. I'm essentially eavesdropping on conversations.” 

Why did Contosta write a fictional novel after two dozen works of nonfiction? “I always thought about writing fiction,” he said. “And this story just came to me. I was very happy with my publisher, Pegasus Books in Cambridge, England. They didn't understand American slang and wanted me to change that language, but I said, 'No. That's the way the characters talk.'”

For more information, email contosta@chc.edu. 

Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.