The Odds by Stewart O’Nan | Book review

Art and Marion have a plan: With both of them laid off and way underwater on their mortgage, they’ve decided to divorce and for Art to declare bankruptcy, a way to protect what assets they have left. To “celebrate,” they’ve returned as fiftysomethings to Niagara Falls, where they honeymooned three decades earlier. What cash they have left on hand will get sucked into the roulette wheel, and if they don’t hit it big, they’ll part ways.

Art, both hopelessly and hopefully romantic, thinks it’s all a clever ruse so he and his wife can begin again. But Marion, still feeling scorched by an affair 20 years prior, and having recently just broken off her own dalliance, sees it as a clean break.

Anyone who read O’Nan’s stellar Last Night at the Lobster is well-acquainted with his storytelling gifts; he’s able to seamlessly switch into different characters’ heads, and to advance both the back story and the current plot in breakneck lockstep, while seeming to take his time. While Art is willing to gamble their last cash in one final effort to save them, Marion’s detachment from the plan mirrors perfectly their approach to their crumbling marriage. And yet, O’Nan shows us how hesitant they both are to make any life-changing decisions.

Astute and wince-inducingly candid in its portrayal of the way a couple feel about each other after 30 years, The Odds’ greatest achievement is in laying bare how two people’s opinion of their marriage is deeply entwined with their sense of themselves. For a short and complex portrayal of marriage, it feels as exhilarating as a dive over the falls.