Roulette Table
Roulette Table
The Exchange: Stewart O’Nan (New Yorker)
“Husbands and wives should love and honor each other, theoretically, till
death, but that didn’t always happen
. Planes crashed, banks failed, countries
broke up.” These are the thoughts of Marion Fowler, half of the married couple
at the heart of Stewart O’Nan’s new novel, “The Odds.” Marion and her husband,
Art, are unemployed, facing the foreclosure of their Cleveland home, and on
the verge of dissolving their thirty-year marriage. In a reckless final
gesture, they embark on a Valentine’s Day trip to Niagara Falls, the site of
their honeymoon, where they plan to risk the last of their savings at a
Canadian casino. “The Odds” not only gives the reader a moment-by-moment
account of the Fowlers’ desperate weekend but also offers a compelling window
into the way that the 2008 economic collapse has affected the lives of average
Americans.
O’Nan, the author of a dozen novels and co-author, with Stephen King, of a
book about the 2004 Boston Red Sox, kindly agreed to answer questions from his
home in Pittsburgh.