The Odds

Jul 18, 2012 Mary Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

The Odds A Love Storyis the first of Stewart O’Nan’s thirteen novels that I have read and I could almost dismiss it, but . . .. My thoughts after the last page were questions about whether or not I had read something worthwhile, even profound.

The story is simple to summarize: after 30 years of marriage and two affairs, one acknowledged and one kept secret and looming bankruptcy due to lost jobs and overextending on a house and a kitchen remodel, Art and Marion wager all they have left on Valent...more

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May 03, 2012 Patricia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Odds by Stewart O’Nan

If you are looking for a fast-paced, full of excitement, lots of action book, this is not the one for you. If you are looking for a story about a marriage that is ordinary and dying this is it.

Sound like a boring read? Well, it is not boring. It is a funny and sad, simple and complex, honest and like real life, love story.

Marion and Art have been married for 30 years. Thirty years of working, loving, raising a family, and now falling apart. They have lost jobs, are going...more

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Feb 03, 2012 Victoria Austin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stewart O'Nan has a gift for capturing the humor and strife of everyday life. O'Nan lives up to his reputation in the book The Odds: A Love Story. A middlea aged couple, Marion and Art, travel to Niagara Falls on the pretense of celebrating their 13th anniversary with a lavish second honeymoon. In reality, their marriage is falling apart and the bank is about to foreclose on their house. This trip is their last chance to potentially save their house and relationship. O'Nan's talent as a writer l...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Vonia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am most likely biased based on a recent personal "adventure" with the misgiving of relationships and/or the perils of love... If I know what it is... O'Nan wrote, as always, with grace, admirable description, & his near unique ability to make the ordinary extraordinary. All his novels take an everyday event, usually covering a very brief period of time, and paint a picture of a working class, typical, seemingly everyday relationship, day at work, small-town event, etc...

I found The Chapte...more I am most likely biased based on a recent personal "adventure" with the misgiving of relationships and/or the perils of love... If I know what it is... O'Nan wrote, as always, with grace, admirable description, & his near unique ability to make the ordinary extraordinary. All his novels take an everyday event, usually covering a very brief period of time, and paint a picture of a working class, typical, seemingly everyday relationship, day at work, small-town event, etc...

I found The Chapter Titles very intriguing ("Odds Of 25th Marriage Anniversary: 1 in 6; Odds of Sex On Valentine's Day 1 in 5; Odds Of "Funny Valentine Playing In A Jazz Band On The Day: 1 in 1; Odds Surviving Fall Down Niagra In A Barrel: 1in 3)... I doubted the accuracy of some of them, but I believe that's me not ever thinking of it that way before...

This novel, in particular, painted a very accurate picture, in my opinion, of a relationship- a romantic relationship in particular- whether it be a marriage, a partnership, an engagement, a boyfriend/girlfriend couple just beginning. He shows how a couple can have their inside jokes; how in public they can act (and often do) vastly different than how they do behind closed doors. Again, I may be biased due to personal events in my own world as of late, but this is probably the best example I can think of that shows the complexities of a romantic relationship... Yet, at the same time, just how similar & simple romantic relationships are, across generations, cultures, time, & space. Many of us think our relationships are unique; we wonder that no one else argues as we do... but that would be inaccurate. iIn one scene, A "Just Married" couple is seen arguing to the point of tears, hours after vows are read. This, readers, is exactly how it is in real life, unfortunately. O'Nan artfully shows his readers how complicated a relationship is- especially when complex personalities are placed together, living together, depending on each other financially, emotionally, physically, day in and day out. It's never simple, a relationship... let alone a marriage. Nobody ever said it was easy. Nobody ever said there wouldn't be moments we question our sanity. Nobody ever said both parties would make their mistakes; that we wouldn't have affairs, stray from our loyalties, regret decisions, lose everything dear to us. All we can do is do our best to keep the relationship flourishing... keep our eyes on the ball; the goal... And try to remember that every relationship has its problems; every potential significant other his/her flaws... What we choose to do with this information; how hard we fight to keep what we once knew, to some degree, was exactly what and everything we wanted in life- is where our character shines.

As cliche as it is, Love sucks. Relationships are hard. All we can each do is fight for what we believe in; for those that we love; for what we love. At the end of the day, it is those close to us that matter.

Mr. Stewart O'Nan, Thank You.

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Jan 19, 2012 Ti rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: galleys-completed-net-galley, books-sent-to-me

The Short of It:

A brutally honest look at a marriage in crisis.

The Rest of It:

In all my years as a reader, I’ve never read an O’Nan novel. Boy, have I been missing out.

Art and Marion Fowler ditch their soon-to-be foreclosed home for Niagara Falls, hoping to recoup enough money to save their home and their marriage. The odds are against them, in more ways than one but as they rent the “bridal” suite for one last Valentine’s hurrah, one remains hopeful where the other has totally and utterly given...more The Short of It:

A brutally honest look at a marriage in crisis.

The Rest of It:

In all my years as a reader, I’ve never read an O’Nan novel. Boy, have I been missing out.

Art and Marion Fowler ditch their soon-to-be foreclosed home for Niagara Falls, hoping to recoup enough money to save their home and their marriage. The odds are against them, in more ways than one but as they rent the “bridal” suite for one last Valentine’s hurrah, one remains hopeful where the other has totally and utterly given up hope.

From the very first page, it’s clear that Marion is going along with Art’s plan as a way to humor him, or perhaps…she feels obligated to give it one last shot just so she can say that she tried everything in her power to make it work. Regardless, what she is is a broken woman at the end of her rope, hoping to close this chapter so she can move on to the next stage of her life. She’s not entirely convinced that gambling can save them, but she gives it a go for Art’s sake.

Art however, is the opposite. Inside, he knows that the marriage is coming to a close but he’s not ready to throw in the towel. Not quite yet. He’s optimistic to a fault but somehow, you can’t hold that against him. Jobless and wanting nothing more than to provide for his family, he sees this trip as a solution to their problems. Additionally, he has decided to ask Marion to marry him all over again. To start fresh, even if they can never go back to the life they knew so well.

Since the odds of recouping what they need to save the house are slim to none, they continue to squander money by way of their maxed-out credit card, living it up until they are basically told that they no longer can. Fine dinners, champagne and visiting all of the tourist traps that looked much more appealing the first time around. It’s heartbreaking, really.

But as sad and heartbreaking as so much of it was, I adored it. This story is all about second chances and when O’Nan goes into the heads of these characters, he must come out exhausted because these characters are complex characters with real worries and pressures. Ink on paper one second, living and breathing creatures the next. Amazing.

I can’t compare this book to his others since this was my first experience with O’Nan, but if the character development in his other books is anything like it was here, then I will be reading more of his books in the near future.

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Mar 05, 2013 Betz rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was really shocked to see that people gave this book a 5 star rating. I hope to even the playing field with my one star rating. I think O'Nan wrote this book over a weekend--or maybe just on a Friday night. One reviewer said she almost dismissed the book but then thought O'Nan's other works were so good, that perhaps she was at fault and was missing something more profound. Nothing profound here! I felt the entire time I was reading the book that I had read this book before--a typical "we are...more

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Dec 18, 2012 Everyday eBook rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Everyday by: Abigail Dalton

In this season of endless to-do lists and short attention spans, Stewart O’Nan’s The Odds may be the book you’re looking for on a cold winter night when you need something to take your mind off of shopping lists and family dinners. In this compact gem of a novel, O’Nan follows a couple, Marion and Art, a long-married duo at the end of their financial and emotional ropes. Art has hatched a plan in which they’ll return to Niagara Falls, sight of their honeymoon and nexus of their original married...more In this season of endless to-do lists and short attention spans, Stewart O’Nan’s The Odds may be the book you’re looking for on a cold winter night when you need something to take your mind off of shopping lists and family dinners. In this compact gem of a novel, O’Nan follows a couple, Marion and Art, a long-married duo at the end of their financial and emotional ropes. Art has hatched a plan in which they’ll return to Niagara Falls, sight of their honeymoon and nexus of their original married happiness, and bet their entire financial worth in an attempt to save their house, their livelihoods, and their marriage.

O’Nan is a master of portraying relationships and emotions as close to reality as possible. In The Odds, we get a picture of a married couple with damaging baggage; Art was unfaithful years ago, and he cannot quite forgive himself for it, nor can Marion quite forgive him. Marion is a portrait of a classically discontented wife in the modern age -- reeling, in a way, from the fact that this is what her life has become after such an auspicious start. Where once she was a bright-eyed newlywed in Canada on her honeymoon, now she’s a slightly dumpy middle-aged woman, consistently annoyed with her husband, addicted to Facebook updates from family and friends, and not entirely sure how she wants the weekend at Niagara Falls to end. Of course, nothing is as simple as Art and Marion make it appear; they’ve had the sort of marriage many baby boomers can relate to, started as a kind of mutual agreement (because after dating for so long, it just made sense to get married) and mired in financial mistakes, small and large emotional betrayals, and thrown entirely off course by the financial meltdown.

The novel moves at a brisk pace, a good thing given its length. O’Nan writes dialogue well, and at times you might actually find yourself uncomfortably reminded of overheard conversations between your parents (or yourself and a partner). The book’s only failing is its somewhat tidy ending. After almost two hundred pages of emotional uncertainty and opacity regarding the future of this marriage, everything ties up a bit too snugly, and you wonder what will really happen once we leave the fictitious world of Art and Marion. Given that O’Nan has never been reluctant to leave his novels open-ended in the past, it’s the only sour note in this otherwise excellent read.

Anyone unfamiliar with Stewart O’Nan’s work should also take up Songs for the Missing, a different sort of “missing girl” story from The Lovely Bones in that it is incredibly realistic and emotionally heart-wrenching for its adherence to the motions a family goes through when a daughter goes missing.

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Nov 16, 2012 Robert rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stewart O’Nan’s novel, The Odds -- A Love Story, has many strengths and a few weaknesses, though perhaps the weaknesses are more important than the strengths.

This is a book about a couple whose children are out of the house, who have lost everything in the financial meltdown, and who have decided that they will go to Canadian casinos bordering Niagara Falls to try to win enough money to ease their forthcoming bankruptcy proceedings and inevitable divorce.

The desperate improbability of this scena...more Stewart O’Nan’s novel, The Odds -- A Love Story, has many strengths and a few weaknesses, though perhaps the weaknesses are more important than the strengths.

This is a book about a couple whose children are out of the house, who have lost everything in the financial meltdown, and who have decided that they will go to Canadian casinos bordering Niagara Falls to try to win enough money to ease their forthcoming bankruptcy proceedings and inevitable divorce.

The desperate improbability of this scenario is eye-catching, to be sure. O’Nan’s strength is that he makes it real through minute, accurate observations of the couple’s interactions (from both perspectives) in the context of a two-day visit to an appalling tourist destination (not Niagara Falls’ fault).

As I followed what occurs between Art and Marion during their sojourn into reckless gambling, including bedroom, whirlpool, and bar scenes, I couldn’t help thinking of some of John Updike’s Rabbit books and Richard Ford’s Independence Day. Updike was able to make American commercial shlock and meaningless sex sparkle with his dancing style. Ford generally is a more sour and flat critic of contemporary culture in the USA; there’s more overt pain in his work than in Updike’s. O’Nan clearly knows our lifestyle is both thin and dangerous to our souls and wallets, but neither he nor his characters take much issue with the general erosion of civilization that leads, somewhat inevitably, to lots of troubled marriages. Things don’t look good; but they are what they are; and who can do anything about it?

The backstory is that Art had an affair twenty some years ago, and Marion never forgave him. She did, however, have her own affair with a woman, and continues to keep that secret. This tit-for-tat seems to lie at the core of Art’s neediness and Marion’s somewhat generous ambivalence toward him. She’s expert at turning away from him when he wants sex, but she feels guilty about it. So she gives him what he wants, which he tends to think is his gift to her, and then wishes she hadn’t because she knows what she really wants is to separate, live free, get her own place and disentangle herself from him, their past, and their financial crisis.

The brevity, quick pace, good dialogue, insightful details that abound in The Odds compensate to a certain extent for the fact that the really important events in these two lives are only remembered in snatches. We don’t know why Art had his affair. We aren’t really with Marion when she goes through the full stages of a relationship with another woman. We aren’t in the kitchen when Art and Marion are hit in the face by the reality that they really will, having lost their jobs, lose their home. This is the big stuff, not the entertaining but essentially unimportant issue of whether they win or lose playing roulette according to Art’s carefully devised method.

In newspaper jargon, O’Nan has buried his lead. This would be a more compelling book if it took us step by step through the insults and injuries that have brought Art and Marion to emotional and financial ruin. Once we had that in hand, we’d care more about the edgy gamble they undertake to somehow keep them off the streets and in touch with one another as life goes on.
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Nov 09, 2012 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was the first O'Nan book I have read. I saw that his novels receive consistently good reviews, and a short novel works great w/ my business travel.

He seems to be somewhere in between High Literature and Popular Reading, and the setting and plot are very "contemporary". In that, he reminds me a bit of John Updike - the contemporary, the details, the use of items from that particular time.... OK, I loved the Heart concert! O'Nan really did nail a 50+ couple going to see a band from their you...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Lori L (She Treads Softly) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Unabashedly, I'm declaring the Stewart O'Nan fan club is back in session.

In The Odds Stewart O'Nan explores a marriage in crisis. Art and Marion Fowler have lost their jobs, are heading for bankruptcy, about to lose their home, and are on the brink of divorce. In a last ditch effort to salvage something, Art and Marion withdrawal all their remaining savings and book a bridal suite at a Niagara Falls casino. They are telling others it is a second honeymoon. They actually plan to gamble their mone...more Unabashedly, I'm declaring the Stewart O'Nan fan club is back in session.

In The Odds Stewart O'Nan explores a marriage in crisis. Art and Marion Fowler have lost their jobs, are heading for bankruptcy, about to lose their home, and are on the brink of divorce. In a last ditch effort to salvage something, Art and Marion withdrawal all their remaining savings and book a bridal suite at a Niagara Falls casino. They are telling others it is a second honeymoon. They actually plan to gamble their money into enough cash to save them.

This is a bittersweet novel. Art and Marion are also taking all sorts of emotional baggage with them from their almost thirty years of marriage. It soon becomes clear that Art is a hopeful optimist, sure that their marriage and life can be salvaged. Marion is more pessimistic, and trying to simply humor Art for one more weekend before she begins her single life. The desperation of their plan, combined with a thread of optimism, underpins their weekend.

Setting The Odds in Niagara Falls was really a brilliant move. The tourist trap feeling combined with the romance and grandeur of the falls plays off Art and Marion's personal emotional drama. Will this gamble save their marriage, their lives? What are their odds?

The title of the book, The Odds, is emphasized with each new chapter of the book giving the odds that pertains to some event in the chapter. For example, the opening is: "Odds of a U.S. tourist visiting Niagara Falls: 1 in 95." Others include: "Odds of a married couple reaching their 25th anniversary: 1 in 6"; "Odds of seeing a shooting star: 1 in 5,800"; "Odds of a 53-year-old woman being a grandmother: 1 in 3."

While the novel is short and the setting and action are deceptively simple, The Odds is a complex character study. The novel works based on the strength of O'Nan's writing. This is an honest, intimate, emotional novel. These are real people with all the anxieties, desires, faults, and pressures that many people face. They have both made mistakes. Through O'Nan we are privy to all of Art and Marion's thoughts and emotions. O'Nan is a master at character studies.

Very Highly Recommended - one of the best. http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/
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May 25, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've never read a book by Stewart O'Nan, though I have heard good things about him. His latest novel, The Odds: A Love Story, tells the story of Marion and Art, a middle-aged married couple on their way to Niagara Falls.
They are in severe financial trouble, about to lose their home to foreclosure and have a plan to hit a casino, with Art's sure-fire system to win enough money to save them.

As the story quietly unfolds, we find that Art and Marion are planning on separating, but I wasn't clear if...more I've never read a book by Stewart O'Nan, though I have heard good things about him. His latest novel, The Odds: A Love Story, tells the story of Marion and Art, a middle-aged married couple on their way to Niagara Falls.
They are in severe financial trouble, about to lose their home to foreclosure and have a plan to hit a casino, with Art's sure-fire system to win enough money to save them.

As the story quietly unfolds, we find that Art and Marion are planning on separating, but I wasn't clear if it was related to the finances or because Marion was unhappy. We learn that Art had an affair a long time ago, and Marion has never really forgiven him. Marion recently had an affair with a woman, but Art is unaware of that.

Each chapter begins with a statistic, like the "odds of getting sick on vacation 1 in 9", and each statistic relates to the chapter. In this one, Marion gets food poisoning. It's a clever way to tie everything into the gambling theme.

This is basically a two-person story, and as I was reading it, I thought it would make a good stage play. We spend much of time getting to know this couple, and the insight into each character is revealing, like this passage of Art describing himself:
"If, as he liked to think, his greatest strength was a patient, indomitable hope, his one great shortcoming was a refusal to accept and therefore have any shot at changing his fate."
Marion says of herself:
"What had she done with her life? For a moment she couldn't think of anything. Become a wife and a mother. A lover, briefly, badly. Made a home, worked, saved, traveled. All with him. For him, because of him, despite him. From the start, because she was just a girl then, she'd thought they were soul mates, that it made them special, better than other couples they knew. She'd learned her lesson. She swore she'd never be fooled again, not by anyone, and yet she's fought for him as if he were hers, and then, having won, didn't know what to do with him."
That passage just blew me away. I found the writing to be concise, and so profound. Marion and Art each take chapters sharing their thoughts and moving the story along. The overwhelming tone of the novel is sadness, with Art hoping that his gamble can make this last trip together something memorable, that he can be a hero, and they can regain the intimacy they lost.

Marion does not appear to want to reignite their marriage, she sees this as one last reluctant fling. She is an unhappy woman, and the only time she shows any sign of joy is when they get drunk at a Heart concert, reliving her youth.

The one nitpicky thing that bothered me about this book is the character names. Art and Marion are about the same age as me, but their names make them sound like they are 70 years old. I don't know anyone my age named Art or Marion. I wonder if the author intentionally did that?

Their literal gambling to win enough money to save themselves is a metaphor for the gamble they are taking on their marriage. Can they win at either? Anyone who has been married may see themselves in certain parts of this book. It is an insightful look at a marriage in crisis, and the writing is so brilliant, you'll feel like you are eavesdropping on this couple.
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May 11, 2012 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was an entertaining little story that quite honestly, I probably won't remember 6 months from now. But I did enjoy it. A couple on the brink of divorce and bankruptcy decide to revisit the site of their honeymoon in Niagara Falls and try a crazy roulette scheme to win all their money back (and possibly... their marriage?).

It was a very quick read--you could definitely knock it out in just a couple sittings. Basically you get to know the couple real well, but they weren't all that notable o...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Jessi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: appealing-characteristic-language, contemporary, audiobook, 2012

What a wonderful weaver of language! A lot of reviews complain that this is not O'Nan's best work, but never having read him before, I enjoyed the book highly. This book was shorter than I expected, having gotten it as an ARC from NetGalley. It's only two hundred pages but packs a tight story in those short passages.
"...she thought, if offered, she might actually seize the opportunity to rewind to sixteen or seventeen and start over to avoid all of this--then remembered [her children]. You could...more

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Apr 08, 2012 marg rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I need to first say this: I love Stweart O'Nan. I love him as a 'magnify the details of life and make them wonderful' writer, the classic 'nothing happens but it's well written so who cares' guy. I also had the opportunity to meet him and I think he is the most fantastic person ever. And I thought Wish You Were Here was just great, and The Good Wife changed my whole way of thinking, and the one with the Red Lobster was probably the most understated, poignant read in life.
But this latest one seem...more I need to first say this: I love Stweart O'Nan. I love him as a 'magnify the details of life and make them wonderful' writer, the classic 'nothing happens but it's well written so who cares' guy. I also had the opportunity to meet him and I think he is the most fantastic person ever. And I thought Wish You Were Here was just great, and The Good Wife changed my whole way of thinking, and the one with the Red Lobster was probably the most understated, poignant read in life.
But this latest one seemed to be the extreme version of his strengths, and ultimately left me cold.
The Odds has a gimmick going that really is quite clever even if it quickly became annoying; a couple is having one last romp to Niagra, their honeymoon spot, before officially divorcing. The husband, Art, is still hoping for a second chance, Marion is ambivalent leaning toward disgust. Each chapter begins with a 'odds of X, 1:3' or whatever, and the whole time they are planning some kind of quasi gambling heist using odds to make a killing at Roulette since Art recently had to declare bankruptcy.
So in truth this set up is lovely, in that we are also seeing if the couple can beat the odds, and all that. But it just dragged. I see now why people didn't take to his other books, even though I totally loved them, because they must have seen them to be the way I saw this one: a lot of nothing happening, people going to the bathroom and popping antiacids and complaining about thyroids and dinner reservations. Also, I really didn't like or sympathize with either character. They were in that god awful I hope this doesn't happen to me middle age marriage place of each person annoying the other simply by breathing. Art tries to be nice? It's cowardly and crowding. He asserts himself? Marion is hurt and annoyed. Gaah! Marion was a total nag and Art was basically whipped. O'Nan definitely portrayed a realistic image but maybe you need to be living through that to want to be bothered, and thankfully I'm not and I hope I never will.
I also think his last line was over the top and he should have ended it the sentence before. Just saying.(less)

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Apr 08, 2012 David Abrams rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When it comes to putting American culture under a microscope, few novelists succeed as well as Stewart O’Nan. Time after time, novel after novel, O’Nan has focused tightly on particular microbes of our society—people like you and me, to be blunt about it—and examined the foibles, the follies, and the flaws of the Way We Live. In Songs for the Missing, he turned his attention to the grief of a family whose teenage daughter goes missing; in Last Night at the Lobster, it was the disappointment of t...more When it comes to putting American culture under a microscope, few novelists succeed as well as Stewart O’Nan. Time after time, novel after novel, O’Nan has focused tightly on particular microbes of our society—people like you and me, to be blunt about it—and examined the foibles, the follies, and the flaws of the Way We Live. In Songs for the Missing, he turned his attention to the grief of a family whose teenage daughter goes missing; in Last Night at the Lobster, it was the disappointment of the American economic dream; in Emily, Alone, it was the solitude of the elderly.

In his newest novel, The Odds: A Love Story, O’Nan puts a troubled marriage in the petri dish. As we're told in the first sentence, Art and Marion Fowler are headed for Niagara Falls on "the final weekend of their marriage, hounded by insolvency, indecision, and, stupidly, half-secretly, in the never-distant past rule by memory, infidelity." It's bloated with a few too many commas, perhaps, but that sentence works hard to jam a lot of information into the reader's head. This is O'Nan's forte: economizing language while filling his sentences with details. Here's another one just a couple of paragraphs down the page: "They weren't good liars, they were just afraid of the truth and what it might say about them."

In their early fifties and traveling along the time-worn ruts of their marriage, the Fowlers avoid the hard realities of their fizzled romance--to the point where this novel could be subtitled What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Love. The marriage is pocked with craters, a minefield of secrets which have brought them to the brink of divorce and, by consequence, the edge of bankruptcy. They're $250,000 in debt, Art is six months out of work, and they're facing foreclosure on their home in Cleveland. Now they're literally gambling on the future of their relationship in the casinos at the Niagara resort where Art has booked them a room on Valentine's Day. They spend the mornings playing tourist at hokey stops like Ripley's Believe It Or Not with disastrous results as they desperately try to rekindle the romance of their honeymoon 30 years earlier. At night, they make plans to gamble in the resort's casino (bright and "achime with ringing slot machines") with the last of their savings--the $40,000 they've smuggled across the border of Canada.

Both have cheated on the other. Art has confessed his affair to Marion, but she has kept hers buttoned-up inside (perhaps because it was with another woman). The adultery is the painted backdrop, but it's not the main action on the stage--the marital salvage effort is.

Art believes the marriage can be saved; Marion is less convinced, but is willing to give it one last shot. Art latches on to the smallest sign of her yielding to his plan. O'Nan masterfully illustrates a husband's delusion even in the face of disaster: "If, as he liked to think, his greatest strength was a patient, indomitable hope, his one great shortcoming was a refusal to accept and therefore have any shot at changing his fate, even when the inevitable was clear to him." This becomes abundantly clear when the day of the big gamble comes as Art sits down at the roulette table, systematically playing the black, refusing to budge in the belief that things would get better: "Because eventually, with near even odds, they'd win. It was a question of patience and the willingness to lose big." Marion thinks "his strategy was exactly like him, methodical to a fault."

O'Nan uses a telephoto lens, rather than a wide-angle, to zoom in on this one particular couple facing the romantic torpor common to so many long-term relationships. The Odds is a short book--less than 200 pages--but it says as much about marriage as any doorstopper the size of Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary.

This is essentially a two-character novel--three, if you count the "tireless" Falls with their "monolithic roar" thundering and hissing outside their hotel window. You can bet O'Nan mines the Falls for every ounce of symbolism he can get: the marriage as a river, the precipice-and-plunge of adultery, the misty crash on the rocks below--it's all there, and told in grand literary style:

Here, hard by the rushing current, with a view of the rapids upstream, she could appreciate this wasn't just a river but a whole great lake pouring over a cliff. Feet from the edge, gulls stood on rocks as whitecaps surged past. The blue water turned a sea-green like the curl of a wave, broke and flew, foaming in overlapping sheets as it fell away, constantly, endlessly. She'd forgotten the raw force of it--the exhilarating danger the reason they were all there.

O'Nan also gets good mileage out of romantic metaphors. Niagara is, of course, the kitschy-tacky destination of honeymooners and is never more potent than on this Valentine's Day weekend. Then there's Art's first name, a truncation of "heart." Heart also shows up--the rock band, that is--putting on a show at the resort. And you can hardly turn around in this novel without bumping into the color red--in the nighttime floodlights on the Falls, in the rose Art buys for Marion, in the wine they drink, on the roulette wheel itself.

Like the ball skipping along the slots on the spinning wheel, O'Nan moves the novel's point of view between Art and Marion, gradually filling us in on clues to their past and what brought them here to the point of dissolution. Of the two, Marion seems the most recalcitrant and unforgiving. Art garners our pity, but also our dislike because he can be too passively inert. It's easy to understand why Marion is fed up with his non-committal, eager-to-please behavior. In truth, neither is a wholly likable person, but O'Nan gives just enough detail to make us sympathetic to their plight. By novel's end--which comes quickly and abruptly--we're rooting for this marriage to be saved. For such a short, 200-page relationship, I found myself incredibly moved by what happens to Art and Marion Fowler as they float down the river, calling for help from their barrel just before they go over the edge of the Falls.

This review originally appeared at The Quivering Pen blog.(less)

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Mar 28, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiftyfiftyme

If you were on the verge of losing something you cherished and had a chance to make an all-or-nothing bet to keep it, would you?

Stewart O’Nan’s The Odds finds Art and Marion Fowler, a long-married couple at the end of a bad run of marital affairs, layoffs and financial ruin, in this unusual predicament. With their house on the verge of being foreclosed, they’ve come to the casino on the Canada side of Niagara Falls in a last-ditch effort to save everything they’ve worked for by risking it all pl...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It’s painful to watch a couple who have lost their connection attempt to interact.

That’s the focus of this new Stewart O’Nan book.

You may or may not know that I have loved Stewart O’Nan’s books, Emily, Alone, and Last Night at the Red Lobster.

This book shares some of the qualities of his earlier works. The couple that is at the heart of this story are just working people, barely able to keep going in this crazy world. The world is seemingly spinning too fast, suddenly, so fast that it just mi...more

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Mar 14, 2012 Alecia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I always am eager to read a new book by Stewart O'Nan. I still think about Last Night at the Lobster, another short, but powerful novel by O'Nan. This is also a very short novel, but it's a powerfully written, yet gently told story of a long marriage. Marion and Art are on the cusp of filing for bankruptcy. The idea is to take what money they have left and revist Niagra Falls, where they had their honeymoon. There they will bet their remaining money on the roulette wheel according to a method th...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Barbara Bryant rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read three books by Stewart O'Nan this year and can say that I enjoy his writing. This is a slighter story than the others that I've read, and concerns a two-night stay at Niagara Falls for an older couple who is trying for one last big win to counter their bankruptcy, and at least for one of them, save a marriage.

O'Nan is a good observer and describes his stories with wonderful detail, dialogue, wit and attention. This makes up for what is, as I said, a slight book with good writing but...more

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Feb 26, 2012 Caren rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction

Mr. O'Nan has captured the tenor of our times in this slim novel of a middle-aged couple whose financial situation and marriage are coming apart at the seams. As a last ditch effort to salvage some of their lives, they take an anniversary trip to the Canadian Niagara Falls with what remains of their life savings, in order to gamble on doubling their money and, just perhaps, patching up their relationship. Each chapter begins with statistical odds of a certain event coming to pass (example: "Chap...more

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Feb 24, 2012 Anne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Somehow Stewart O'Nan manages to flawlessly to capture in beautiful and stunningly direct prose, the reality of a very long marriage with all of its inherent baggage - both joy and grief, love and lust lost and found, all the resentments and small betrayals, the resignation - the whole nine yards, as it were. Art and Marion Fowler find themselves in their mid-fifties rudely removed from all that they had ever dreamed about. Both are unemployed victims of the US economy, and they are financially...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Daniel Powell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stewart O'Nan's The Odds is, appropriately, subtitled "A Love Story." It's not of the Nicholas Sparks or Danielle Steele school of love stories, which is probably why I found it such an interesting story.

There's a great line in Joan Didion's essay "On Going Home." Didion writes that "Marriage is the ultimate betrayal." Within the context of her essay, she's talking about how marriage changes the familial dynamic, how her people call her husband "Joan's husband" in his presence because he hasn't...more Stewart O'Nan's The Odds is, appropriately, subtitled "A Love Story." It's not of the Nicholas Sparks or Danielle Steele school of love stories, which is probably why I found it such an interesting story.

There's a great line in Joan Didion's essay "On Going Home." Didion writes that "Marriage is the ultimate betrayal." Within the context of her essay, she's talking about how marriage changes the familial dynamic, how her people call her husband "Joan's husband" in his presence because he hasn't quite cracked the barrier to becoming part of the immediate family.

But there are an infinite number of betrayals--some small and innocent, others huge and unforgivable--that color the glass of most marriages. In this case, we see infidelities on both sides that would choke the life from many unions.

Art and Marion are approaching middle age and lurching toward divorce. They still harbor a sort of love for each other, though more often than not their interactions are strained and calculated. The frivolity, the fun, the relaxed love that should accompany a marriage has flown away, because of Art's infidelity (Marion's, curiously, remains hidden in this novella--a plot point that would probably create a much different story if she had come clean).

O'Nan paints these characters in three dimensions; neither holds a place of moral superiority. The author's complex prose style is very descriptive and the story unfolds quickly. They are taking one last vacation to Canada, where they will wager their savings on games of chance at the casino. Both recently laid off and falling beneath the burden of crushing debt, this is as much a tale of the times as it is a story of mutual redemption for our protagonists.

I enjoyed reading this story very much, partly as a guidebook on what to look out for in avoiding Art and Marion's traps. Ultimately, it comes down to trust. Doesn't it always? I'm hopeful that their marriage will have a happier second act. That final line, in spite of everything that comes before it, seems to indicate that's at least a possibility.

Recommended...(less)

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Feb 11, 2012 Marcia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: x2012, kindle, library, fiction

Actual Rating: ***1/2

A middle-aged Midwestern couple returns to Niagara Falls, the site of their honeymoon years earlier, in hopes of saving their marriage. Odds factoids (Odds of a couple fighting on Valentine's Day: 1 in 5) head every chapter as the drama of Art and Marion Fowler plays out with their hope to hit it big in the casino--that hope driven by the financial ruin rained down upon them in the 2008 recession--both having lost their jobs, their house in danger of foreclosure.

There was a...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Tammy Dotts rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Any introduction to writing or literature class will include the theory that most (if not all) books follow a pattern of escalating peaks that reach a climax before drifting off into a denouement. In a line graph, the crux of the book, regardless of the genre, would stand above everything else. The pattern of plot denotes a clear beginning, middle and end.

But what if a book chooses to disregard this tried-and-true formula? What if the book chops off the traditional beginning and end? What if the...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Mari Anne rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stewart O'Nan seems to be one of those uniquely talented writers that never has a blockbuster. I have read several of his books and I think I might know why. He is undeniably a very talented writer and I always enjoy his books... to a point. Every book of his that I have read has always been missing something. Sometimes it's better character development, sometimes a better plot. His novels always JUST seem to miss the mark. In this novel I was really enjoying the story and was really thinking th...more

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Jan 30, 2012 Felice rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As much as I crave the chubby novels with 58 main characters, 130 subplots and a heft that guarantees the reader Popeye sized forearms by page 500 I do find the quiet, small, I’m-not-sure-anything-ever-happens-until-suddenly-it-has-happened novels very impressive. Stewart O’Nan is a master of such novels. He leads the reader through the lives of the people they live next door too with the dexterity of a spellbinder.

The Odds is O’Nan’s new novel. It tells the story of Art and Marion Fowler’s mar...more
As much as I crave the chubby novels with 58 main characters, 130 subplots and a heft that guarantees the reader Popeye sized forearms by page 500 I do find the quiet, small, I’m-not-sure-anything-ever-happens-until-suddenly-it-has-happened novels very impressive. Stewart O’Nan is a master of such novels. He leads the reader through the lives of the people they live next door too with the dexterity of a spellbinder.

The Odds is O’Nan’s new novel. It tells the story of Art and Marion Fowler’s marriage. Their 30th anniversary is looming along with their impending divorce and the foreclosure on their home. In a last ditch effort to maybe save their marriage and home Art and Marion take a bus trip they cannot afford from Ohio to Niagara Falls. They honeymooned there and a return trip might bring a miracle that could change to their situation. Once in Niagara, Art and Marion are surrounded by young newlyweds and couples their age celebrating anniversaries. It is all a reminder of what was and what has been lost and of Art’s optimistic fantasy and Marion’s middle age inertia.

Thirty years of hard work and careful financial choices have not saved Art and Marion from a devastating economy. Art, the fixer, thinks he has a handle on that problem. He’s been practicing on online gambling sites. He thinks he knows how to beat the house. O’Nan takes advantage of that plan by heading each chapter of the novel with the odds on: a married couple making love, on Heart playing Barracuda at a concert, on vomiting while on vacation, etc.

O’Nan alternates the chapters between Marion and Art but The Odds is never a she said, he said Can This Marriage Be Saved piece. There is too much reality, too much recognizable everyday in The Odds. It also helps that O’Nan respects his characters. He reveals their story, their sadness without sarcasm or superiority.

I don’t have the skills to properly convey how Stewart O’Nan makes the minutia of normal lives, the concerns and experiences of people like all us fascinating, funny, romantic and heartbreaking in a novel without any of the traditional elements of drama but he does. Read The Odds and you read transcendent writing(less)

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Jan 29, 2012 Larry Hoffer rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Niagara Falls is the often-clichéd spot where couples begin and celebrate their lives together, as a large number of marriage proposals and weddings happen there each year despite all of the tourist trappings. Stewart O'Nan's new novel, The Odds looks at the other side of the coin—a couple staring down the end of their lives together.

Art and Marion Fowler have been married for nearly 30 not-entirely-happy years. With their marriage on the brink of collapse and their finances in ruin, they flee...more Niagara Falls is the often-clichéd spot where couples begin and celebrate their lives together, as a large number of marriage proposals and weddings happen there each year despite all of the tourist trappings. Stewart O'Nan's new novel, The Odds looks at the other side of the coin—a couple staring down the end of their lives together.

Art and Marion Fowler have been married for nearly 30 not-entirely-happy years. With their marriage on the brink of collapse and their finances in ruin, they flee their suburban Ohio home for one last journey back to Niagara Falls, where they celebrated their honeymoon. They've cashed in their savings in the hopes a big win will stem the foreclosure of their house, but both arrive at the Falls with different goals—Art is hoping that maxing out his credit cards by booking a bridal suite and planning romantic events will make Marion fall in love with him again, while Marion is ready to move on with her life no matter what happens with their money. This is the story of a couple gambling their future on one last weekend together, and both want the win to go their way.

Stewart O'Nan is definitely one of my favorite writers. He has a way with language, plot, and character development that always pulls you into his books, and The Odds was no exception. At under 200 pages, I read the book in a little more than a day, and was drawn to finding out just what was going to happen to the Fowlers. They are weary people; each has fought the same fights and heard the same responses from the other countless times. Yet it's probably that weariness that didn't endear this book to me as much as I hoped it would. Yes, I was invested in knowing what happened to Art and Marion (and although the future is alluded to, you're left to your own devices to figure out what's next for the couple), but more because I love reading O'Nan's writing, not because I had any real love for the characters. Much as you feel after visiting a real touristy destination, I felt glad to have made the journey, but didn't feel moved by the experience. I would encourage those of you who have never read any of O'Nan's books to pick up Snow Angels, Last Night at the Lobster, Wish You Were Here, Emily Alone or any one of his earlier books. He's a terrific writer; I just didn't feel this book was as good as some of his previous ones.(less)

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Jan 25, 2012 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

THE ODDS: A Love Story. (2012). Stewart O’Nan. *****.
This short novel from Mr. O’Nan really manages to hit home. It seems to come right off the front page of our current newspapers. Marion and Art have been married for almost thirty years. They decide to travel from their home in Cleveland to Niagara Falls to celebrate Valentine’s day. Art has recently lost his job and Marion has had her hours cut back severely. Their home is about to be foreclosed upon, and their marriage is on the rocks. They...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stewart O’Nan is a master at looking at the ordinary, everyday and everyman and presenting readers with a story that is both beautifully executed and insightful. O’Nan’s latest, The Odds: A Love Story certain doesn’t disappoint. Covering Valentine’s Day weekend in 2006, The Odds tells the story of Art and Marion Fowler, a middle aged couple facing not only bankruptcy, but also the end of their marriage. In an act of desperation the Fowlers liquidate their finances and head to a casino in Niagara...more

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Jan 19, 2012 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I accidentally deleted my review so here it is again, but I tweaked it because the first draft needed work.

In this bittersweet, spare novella, a Cleveland couple returns to the scene of their honeymoon in Niagara Falls to gamble on their declining thirty-year marriage and bet on their collapsing net worth. Victims of the economic recession, Art and Marion Fowler are unemployed professionals with a quarter-million-dollar debt and a three-decade balance sheet of reproaches, recriminations, and reg...more I accidentally deleted my review so here it is again, but I tweaked it because the first draft needed work.

In this bittersweet, spare novella, a Cleveland couple returns to the scene of their honeymoon in Niagara Falls to gamble on their declining thirty-year marriage and bet on their collapsing net worth. Victims of the economic recession, Art and Marion Fowler are unemployed professionals with a quarter-million-dollar debt and a three-decade balance sheet of reproaches, recriminations, and regrets.

As a last gasp venture, Art takes Marion on a Valentine Special Getaway to the Canadian Falls and liquidates their life savings to try and beat the odds at the casino roulette wheel. Art has practiced a mathematical method to this madness and is convinced that they will profit from their return. With a mixture of Art's indomitable hope and hopelessly romantic longing and Marion's brittle skepticism and ephemeral desire, they step, like destiny, into the imminent future to recapture the eternal past.

"The scene had the strange familiarity of a dream or fairytale, as if the place had waited thirty years for them to return to learn their fate, the time in between a blink in the face of eternity."

The slender thread between Art and Marion is achingly evoked by O'Nan's interior, intimate narrative and lingers fluently in his constrained prose. In more cynical writers, this sad couple would crumble or flatten out in a single, oppressive note. However, O'Nan's characters murmur with a disobedient warmth that repudiates their chilly restraints. Back and forth, the sublime choreography of Art and Marion's swan song weekend reveals a muffled ardor beneath the unsettling discomforts and inertia of their lives. Naked compassion juxtaposes cringe moments, and an almost imperceptible heartbeat flutters with melancholy desire. Like a fluid dance, the couple's emotions shift organically through the author's prose in effortless concatenation.

In this subdued but surprisingly epic domestic drama, a lot happens within the quiet but bracing pages. Two people are exposed and recognizable to any couple that has gone through stress or torment in a long relationship. And O'Nan's compassion for his characters echoes a humanity that will be recognizable to everyone. Each short chapter begins with a playful statistic, such as "Odds of a married couple reaching their 25th anniversary: 1 in 6" or "Odds of surviving going over the Falls in a barrel: 1 in 3" and "Odds of a couple taking a second honeymoon to the same destination: 1 in 9." Moreover, the author's use of Niagara Falls as extended metaphor and symbol of natural (the Falls themselves) and artificial (the colored lights, the casino, the consumer attractions) plays out against the Fowler's marriage.

Occasionally, reader weariness sets in due to the inability to release or escape from Art and Marion. And the sudden ending is not as strong as expected by this O'Nan fan.

Thank you to netgalley for providing this book to me on my Kindle. (less)

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