Dumb Luck

by Adam Gibbs

Owen a bookish, single, almost-thirty fellow living in a nondescript Peoria apartment is reminded of how boring his life is every single day. As a travel agent, Owen helps others live life to the fullest -- every trip magnifies the banality of his routine. Fed up with it, he decides to plan an adventure to Vegas for its wild reputation. Owen thinks it’s the perfect destination for someone looking for a fun escape, and it might even be good for his writing. But he has no way of knowing something very dark is lurking there, something inescapable. Dumb Luck by Adam Gibbs is darkly comic, painting a picture of what can happen when you step outside the comfort of your daily routine in search of a thrill.

96 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Darin Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Owen Miller just wants to get away. He’s been rolling his vacation time over for years, only taking a day here or there as needed. Determined to nudge himself out of the mundane rut in which he feels trapped, he arbitrarily chooses Las Vegas as his destination, knowing it is exactly the sort of choice his friends would never anticipate from him. Arranging the trip is easy—he works for a travel agency, after all. Forcing himself to board the plane is something altogether different. Once airborne, he is committed to seeing his vacation through. He just never imagined the story he’d have to tell once he returned home.

Whoa—this compact novella is not even remotely what I expected.

For some reason, its synopsis had me envisioning some sort of “Weekend at Bernie’s” hijinks where a loveable underdog finally gets the chance to kick up his heels only to find himself derailed by a series of hysterical complications. Having met the author—he is a fellow member of the Grove City Writers’ Group—I should have known better. Adam Gibbs is primarily a poet, and honestly, poetry just isn’t my thing. Even so, the selections Gibbs has shared in meetings have illustrated how very adept he is at stirring the soul with just a few carefully chosen words, and despite its limited page count, this story packs quite the punch.

From the very beginning, we are given unfettered access to Owen Miller’s often fatalistic thought processes as he desperately tries to push himself outside of a box that he’s spent years building around himself. Almost thirty, he already feels like the best of life has passed him by. His awkward social exchanges with coworkers and his general discomfort in public spaces hit home for me, as I struggled with the same sort of anxiety when I was his age. His reliance on room service and liquor, cloistered away in his Vegas hotel room, threatens to destroy the very deal he’s made with himself, which is to experience life for a change, instead of simply observing from the sidelines. Will he find the courage to step outside of his comfort zone before his vacation draws to a close?

As the story draws to its shocking and unexpected conclusion, we’re left to ponder what’s really important in life and how much time we spend obsessing over the truly inconsequential. Life’s too short to waste a single, precious moment.

Powerful.

[Susan Borgersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dumb Luck is not my usual genre, I normally read fiction by authors such as Deborah Moggach, Minette Walters — you get the idea — but Dumb Luck intrigued me so I loaded it to Kindle on publication day.

Novels written in the first person do not always make for an easy read, but Gibbs’ fluent style blows that myth out of the water.

This is a rapid action book about a young single guy (Owen Miller) who spends his personal life as a wannabe writer and his working life helping people go off on travel adventures, something young Owen has never done. And then, whammo, he goes for it, the reader is with him on a roller-coaster of an adventure in a most unlikely place.

Gibbs cleverly weaves in the backstory, the friend and family connections, in such a way that you just have to love Owen Miller.

[Shawn Van Horn · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was my good luck to read this debut novella by such a talented emerging writer. I'm a sucker for coming-of-age tales, so the premise of a lonely man escaping himself for a vacation to Las Vegas hit home. I could see so much of myself in the book's hero, Owen Miller, and found myself rooting for him at every turn. Mr. Gibbs took it to the next level with a heartbreaking twist apropos to the ills of our modern times that left me questioning the absurdities of life and the decisions we make, or the ones we don't make at all. I can't wait to see what he does next.

[Brandon Minster · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing exploration of alienation in the face of disaster.