Does a person have a choice or does fate decide everything for him? One of the most interesting British writers, Jonathan Coe, asks this eternal question in his first novel, “The Random Woman,” with irony and a little mockingly exploring the relationship between the random and the natural in our lives. It would seem that the author knows everything about the heroine - starting with her friends and enemies and ending with the smallest movements of the soul and hidden desires. And yet the “typical” Mary, a woman like many of them, is an incomprehensible mystery, both for the author and the reader. Maria has no goals, she has no ambitions, her desires are simple and at the same time vague. Maria does not live, she rather wanders through life - with her eyes closed, not even trying to feel the way under her feet. And fate plays a strange game with Maria - randomly giving her chances to change her life, but as soon as Maria becomes interested in what is happening outside of her consciousness, as fate makes a sharp turn and again plunges her into the chaos of indifference, unformed feelings and vague desires. Accidental admission to Oxford, accidental marriage, accidental child, accidental love. Maria is a random woman in this life. Are you different?