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Nathaniel Rich

Odds Against Tomorrow: A Novel Hardcover – April 2, 2013

by Nathaniel Rich (Author)

163 ratings

3.4 on Goodreads

2,450 ratings

Editors' pick Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

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NEW YORK CITY, the near future: Mitchell Zukor, a gifted young mathematician, is hired by a mysterious new financial consulting firm, FutureWorld. The business operates out of a cavernous office in the Empire State Building; Mitchell is employee number two. He is asked to calculate worst-case scenarios in the most intricate detail, and his schemes are sold to corporations to indemnify them against any future disasters. This is the cutting edge of corporate irresponsibility, and business is booming.

As Mitchell immerses himself in the mathematics of catastrophe―ecological collapse, global war, natural disasters―he becomes obsessed by a culture's fears. Yet he also loses touch with his last connection to reality: Elsa Bruner, a friend with her own apocalyptic secret, who has started a commune in Maine. Then, just as Mitchell's predictions reach a nightmarish crescendo, an actual worst-case scenario overtakes Manhattan. Mitchell realizes he is uniquely prepared to profit. But at what cost?

At once an all-too-plausible literary thriller, an unexpected love story, and a philosophically searching inquiry into the nature of fear, Nathaniel Rich's Odds Against Tomorrow poses the ultimate questions of imagination and civilization. The future is not quite what it used to be.

An NPR Best Book of 2013

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date

April 2, 2013
Dimensions

5.98 x 1.11 x 8.47 inches
ISBN-10

0374224242
ISBN-13

978-0374224240
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Superstorm Sandy changed many landmarks on the East Coast and became a new benchmark for destruction. It also added to readers’ ability to suspend disbelief while reading this book. Set in a future rife with ecological disaster (like the destruction of Seattle by an earthquake), it stars mathematical prodigy Mitchell Zukor, son of a Kansas City slumlord. He turns his obsessive fear of disasters into the epitome of financial success in Manhattan until a category three hurricane makes a direct hit on New York City, at which point he is treated as a prophet. Mitchell progresses from the stereotype of the obsessed nerd—think handmade T-shirts of famous mathematicians like Fibonacci—to a more thoughtful human being, a transformation that echoes the narrative arc and underlying themes of the novel. This literary thriller is blessed with a propulsive plot, macabre humor, several richly developed characters, and serious ethical and philosophical issues, all lightly clothed in skillful writing. Highly recommended for readers of literary fiction with a political edge. --Ellen Loughran

Review

"This brilliantly conceived and extremely well-executed novel [is] the opposite of a disaster, a knockout of a book by a young writer to keep your eye on from now on."
--Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered

"Let's just, right away, recognize how prescient this charming, terrifying, comic novel of apocalyptic manners is...Rich is a gifted caricaturist and a gifted apocalyptist. His descriptions of the vagaries of both nature and human nature are stark, fresh, and convincing, full of surprise and recognition as both good comedy and good terror must be."--Cathleen Schine, The New York Review of Books

"In an already uneasy age, Rich zeroes in on our collective anxiety with a story of wild-eyed ingenuity that is both meditative and propulsive, often simultaneously. With its fits of paranoia and eerily prescient scenario, this book is not comfortable reading, but it's also nearly impossible to put down."--Kirkus Reviews

"Scarily prescient and wholly original."--Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

"This literary thriller is blessed with a propulsive plot, macabre humor, several richly developed characters, and serious ethical and philosophical issues, all lightly clothed in skillful writing. Highly recommended."--Booklist

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st Edition (April 2, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374224242
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0374224240
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.98 x 1.11 x 8.47 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,613,356 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #20,569 in Psychological Thrillers (Books)
- #79,382 in Suspense Thrillers
- #102,493 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
163 ratings

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Nathaniel Rich

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Nathaniel Rich is the author of LOSING EARTH, which was awarded major prizes by the Society of Environmental Journalists and the American Institute of Physics, and was a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Rich is a writer-at-large for the New York Times Magazine and a regular contributor to the Atlantic and the New York Review of Books.

He is also the author of the novels KING ZENO, ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW, and THE MAYOR'S TONGUE, all New York Times Book Review Editors' Picks. His short fiction has been awarded by Virginia Quarterly Review's Emily Clark Balch Prize and has twice been a finalist for a National Magazine Award.

His next book, SECOND NATURE, will be published in April 2021.

Customer reviews

5 star		37%
4 star		24%
3 star		27%
2 star		8%
1 star		5%

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Top reviews from the United States

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A novel about fear, obsession, and the future

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 12, 2019

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It's hard not to feel at least a little like Mitchell Zukor. From an early age, Mitchell has been obsessed with disaster. Not run-of-the-mill personal disaster such as getting shot down for a date or getting rejected on a college application, but real, honest-to-God catastrophe. An asteroid crashes into Earth. A hemorrhagic fever pandemic stalks the planet. The Yellowstone supervolcano erupts. That's the sort of disaster that keeps Mitchell up at night. But unlike everybody else in the world, Mitchell Zukor is a mathematic genius and can actually calculate the odds that any one or all of these events might actually happen. And early in Nathaniel Rich's curious novel about obsession, Odds Against Tomorrow, Mitchell lucks into a job where he can do this sort of thing professionally.

A novel about obsession and natural disaster

In his new job at FutureWorld, Mitchell's obsessive nature translates into the sort of passion that captivates clients. "He was on the vanguard of a new industry—nightmare analysis—and he was proud of it, too. He was a fear professional now." Meeting with the most senior executives at major multinational corporations, he would relate his mathematically grounded fears that the sky is going to fall in. "Every single year, in other words, there was a ten percent chance that the species would extinguish itself. He had no great advice to offer his clients about this fact. He just wanted them to understand the likelihood that they would be incinerated shortly. 'You won't be able to say no one warned you,' he said."

Making money by fantasizing about catastrophe

So, why would these titans of industry and commerce even let this sniveling, latter-day Cassandra in the door? It turns out that a very clever lobbyist for a New York-based multinational had managed to slip a seemingly innocent provision into a bill in the state legislature. That provision indemnifies any corporation from legal action in the case of any natural disaster if only the company takes steps to protect itself. And it may legally do so simply by paying a firm such as FutureWorld to advise it about the risks. Which means that Mitchell and his employers are now in a position to make a great deal of money for doing exactly what he most enjoys: fantasizing about catastrophe.

Surprise! A natural disaster turns out to be . . . disastrous

Then catastrophe actually strikes New York. A massive hurricane rushes up the Atlantic Coast and floods the city. Just exactly as Mitchell has told his clients might happen. And this is not your average hundred-year flood, or five-hundred-year flood. It's the Big Kahuna. The whole city is under tens of feet of water. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, die. Millions become refugees, testing the ability of towns and cities far and wide to absorb them.

So, Odds Against Tomorrow is a dystopian novel of sorts. But it's mostly about obsession. And Mitchell isn't obsessive just about disaster. He fixates on young women, first one, then another, to the point at which at least one reviewer describes the book as a love story. But it's not that. It's just a novel about obsession. And, yes, it's very funny.

6 people found this helpful

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Jake R

Great story! Hit home hard! SPOILERS!!!!!!!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 16, 2013

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For me this book hit home hard for me and my family live no more than 50 yards from the Atlantic Ocean. Here in Brooklyn, NY last October Hurricane Sandy slammed ashore with a 5 foot storm surge (our neighborhood is 8 ft. above sea level) barreling down our block and entire neighborhood. In Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich, Mitchell Zukor sits in a college classroom to witness the fainting attack of another student Elsa Bruner. This same, strange medical condition occurs during when the city of Seattle is decimated by a mega-thrust earthquake. Buildings collapse, the Space Needle is destroyed, roads buckle, hell breaks loose. After the dust settles and the carnage of that day is long over, we find that all the companies sue their insurance agencies for not for-seeing the future (the earthquake) event of the earthquake itself. Fast forward some and we find Zukor working for a company in Manhattan where he is the only agent on the job minus his boss and their secretary. The job? Future event insurance agency. The novel follows Mitchell Zukor as he tells his clients events that could likely happen and how the companies can prepare for Armageddon-type scenarios. Fast-Forward some more, we find Mitchell and a new 'futurist' agent, Jane Eppler who are both working together through a month(s) long drought that has hit the Northeast. As meteorologists pray for rain, it does come eventually but at too heavy a rate that causes flooding. The Earth is so dry that the topsoil is gone and unable to retain so much water, so quickly. Worse than that? A tropical system is coming up the East Coast of the United States on a Hurricane Sandy like track. Fast Forward again Hurricane Tammy a strong Category 4 hurricane slams into Atlantic City, then NYC and quickly passes through the rest of the Northeastern states. The storm is cataclysmic, a worst case scenario foreseen by the man who the media now calls "The Prophet" (Mitchell Zukor). Mitchell and Jane are stuck in Manhattan as the hurricane pummels the city and region. They are trapped by 3 story floodwaters. Finally fast-forwarding one last time: Mitchell and Jane find themselves in a destroyed NYC, a once great city reduced to a shell of itself by a catastrophe un-seen by man, a whole new scenario, Worse than the worst case. Katrina is a joke compared to Tammy... While Mitchell and Jane row through Manhattan and fight for survival they come across all things, far worse than they could ever imagine. Their fight for survival winds them up in Maine looking for long lost Elsa Bruner who is comatose. To no avail they go back to towards the city (this is where I found the author didn't really know where to go with the story and could have left out a couple of chapters here and there) and find themselves struggling to survive in a FEMA camp on Randall's Island. This isn't suitable for Mitchell and Jane so they ditch the camp with another man and go to Canarsie where nothing exists except for a stone masonry Savings Bank. Mitchell begins to clean up and make a makeshift farm while Jane leaves again back to Manhattan to start her own Future Planning-Insurance Agency.

Odds Against Tomorrow gave me one or two small heart palpitations episodes. It made me re-live my worst memories from Hurricane Sandy especially the Zone 5 part well towards the end of the book. The book states that everything in Zone 5 is arid wasteland now and the city will leave it to environmental overhaul, whereby nature will take the land back so the city has once again natural protection from future storms. Because I live in NYC's designated Zone A (Zone 5 in the book) it was scary to think what a storm worse (way worse) than Sandy could actually dish out. We as New Yorkers were spared (others like many of you have seen on Breezy Point on the Rockaway's or some along the South Shore of Staten Island weren't as lucky) somewhat by the ultimate bitch that was Super storm Sandy. Reading this novel was a scientific (some hard, some soft) thriller that I couldn't put down (minus for on-going school work). I look forward to other novels Nathaniel Rich has in store for us and the Odds Against Tomorrow is certainly a book that is a must read for not only this year but any year in the future!

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CHRIS WHITE

Great and not predictable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 16, 2016

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Well written and not standard type plot or characters - much better than that.

Never obvious what will happen next; a real plus.

2 people found this helpful

TeaLover

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 27, 2017

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One of the better post-crisis dystopias.

Oliver

Gutes Buch, ziehender Anfang

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on December 29, 2020

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Die Thematik des Buches und auch dessen Umsetzung sind interessant. Dem Leser wird die dahintersteckende Problematik einleuchtend geschildert. Jedoch zieht sich der Anfang sehr in die Länge.

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AJ

The book is great, and the seller shipped the book in good ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 7, 2014

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The book is great, and the seller shipped the book in good time, and in excellent quality. Very happy with my purchase.

The book itself is a pretty great read-- made me quite paranoid about all the things that could go wrong today though.

Rajat Pungaliya

One of the best fiction books!

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on March 4, 2018

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This book couldn't get any better! In love with the authors writing style. The story is absolute genius! If you're a fan of fiction and science, you will love this book!

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