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‘The Odds: A Love Story’ by Stewart O’Nan

BOOK REVIEW

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 29, 2012|By Caroline Leavitt

Stewart ONans The Odds is set in Niagara Falls. (TRUDY O’NAN )

The first flush of romance may be heady and intoxicating, but what happens to a relationship after the years have worn away the gleam and left some nasty scratches? Stewart O’Nan’s haunting, funny, and gorgeously eloquent new novel, after the superb “Emily, Alone,’’ delves into the gamble that is marriage, and the faith we need to sustain a long-term alliance. And where else to set his book, but the honeymoon epicenter of the world, Niagara Falls on Valentine’s Day weekend.

Art and Marion Fowler, both in their 50s, decide to flee their Cleveland suburb and spend their last days as a married couple the same way they did their first, at a fancy Niagara Falls bridal suite, where “they might find each other again.’’ They’ve got a complicated history, which O’Nan slowly and expertly unspools.

Both are now out of work, Marion first, and then shockingly and unexpectedly Art is downsized. Because the economy has tanked, their investments are nearly worthless, the house where they made a life and raised a family has been on the market for more than a year without any nibbles, and they’re facing bankruptcy. Liquidating their savings, they make a plan: They’ll risk it all on roulette, and if they’re broke by Monday and filing for divorce, at least they’ve tried everything. Both Art and Marion try to keep up a good front. They lie to their grown daughter, Emma, telling her they’re taking a second honeymoon, “betting their marriage . . . on the spin of a wheel,’’ as if they could protect her from their mistakes (or from making the same ones herself later on). They lie to themselves a bit, too, each sifting through the flotsam of memories to see what, if anything, can be salvaged.

O’Nan expertly unpeels his characters with a sure hand, revealing the not-always-steadily beating heart of their marriage, and with each chapter, we begin to know and experience their depths. Marion is deeply conflicted, yearning toward her husband, yet looking forward to breaking up, not sure she’s in love anymore with Art, or even with herself. Art is gently courtly, forever trying to win her back, and to pay for that one devastating infraction 20 years ago that seemed to uproot their relationship. But while Art unburdened his secret to Marion years ago, Marion still can’t really forgive or forget, and she has her own startling revelation that she keeps close to her chest.