54 pages • 1 hour read
Nathaniel RichOdds Against Tomorrow
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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The Value of a Life
Content Warning: This section references existential dread, disaster and its aftermath, and emotional and psychological distress.
The question of the value of an individual’s life—what gives a life its value, who defines that value, whether a person’s value can be defined in multiple ways, whether all lives are of equal value, etc.—runs throughout the novel. This is most evident in the character arc of the protagonist: Mitchell struggles to value himself and also struggles to understand how others value him.
Mitchell’s work at Fitzsimmons Sherman requires him to calculate, in dollars, the value of each employee at the company—i.e., what they are “worth” in life and death. Mitchell painstakingly does the calculations and creates a hierarchy of employees based on their profitability/cost. This introduces the notion (which the novel will heavily critique) that one can measure the value of human life in money. Tellingly, Mitchell himself does not feel valued at Fitsimmons and Sherman, but he believes that the completeness and accuracy of his work will show his bosses his worth. When Sandy Sherman refuses Mitchell’s request to join the Risk team, failing to live up even to this transactional understanding of human worth, Mitchell sees that he is undervalued and leaves to work at FutureWorld.
At FutureWorld, Mitchell’s obsessions and research are of even more direct value to the bottom line, and this is reflected in his salary and treatment by his employer, Charnoble. In a sense, Mitchell comes to subscribe to the value index that he created for Sandy Sherman, measuring his worth in relation to the money he makes for the company. However, Mitchell’s newfound wealth does not fulfill him even as he tries to indulge in a luxurious life, as when he looks at expensive apartments. Unlike characters like Nybuster or even Jane, Mitchell does not find meaning in material comforts. Meanwhile, the dangers of valuing someone for their profitability are becoming evident. Charnoble is quick with kindness and praise when Mitchell is acquiring new clients, but Charnoble’s interest evaporates in situations where he stands to gain nothing. His full disposability to Charnoble becomes clear when Charnoble insists that Mitchell keep working instead of evacuating during Hurricane Tammy.
At first glance, the hurricane seems to affirm the value of Mitchell’s work at FutureWorld. Harold Harding, a client of FutureWorld, calls Mitchell after he survives the hurricane to thank him for his advice, which Harding says saved his employees. However, the idea that he has done some good in his job is no longer enough to sustain Mitchell. Mitchell sees a lot of death as he navigates the floods with Jane, and this reality forces him to evaluate what he wants in life. Rejecting the corporate capitalist system of valuation, he ultimately realizes that he has the power to define his own worth, which is reflected in his decision to homestead the Flatlands instead of working at Future Days with Jane. His material self-sufficiency echoes his willingness to let go of the way that others value him in pursuit of his own happiness.
The Business of Fear
Fear is an undercurrent throughout Odds Against Tomorrow; characters exploit fear, suppress their fears, and live with their fears. Above all, characters attempt to understand fear. Mitchell, perpetually anxious himself, learns to recognize and then sell fear to his clients—a business the novel critiques as callous and exploitative.
Charnoble turns fear of chaos into profit when he creates FutureWorld. The basic business model involves stirring up fear of various natural disaster scenarios (and attendant lawsuits) among corporate executives and then selling them solutions. This approach to potential calamity is inherently calculating, as what matters at the business table is not the potential for human death but rather the specter of lost profits. It also hinges on inflicting pain—to win over clients, FutureWorld intentionally causes emotional distress—and raises questions about the potential consequences of alarmism. Jane, for example, is so inured to the idea that FutureWorld predicts disasters that never pan out that she fails to recognize the danger Hurricane Tammy poses.
Jane’s blasé attitude is the norm rather than the exception among FutureWorld’s target demographic, though for different reasons. Again and again, wealthy characters exclude themselves in speculations about disasters’ casualties, trusting their riches to insulate them. When Mitchell notes to the executives of Fitzsimmons Sherman that a catastrophic event at the Empire State Building would in fact claim their lives too, the executives find it comical. This sense of immunity means that Mitchell must calibrate his pitch when dealing with clients like Nybuster to make catastrophe real for them. More broadly, the novel suggests that companies’ frequent failures to protect their employees may not simply be a matter of self-interest. Rather, the wealthy executives who run the companies do not truly believe that they can be victims; they therefore lack forethought and fail to take action in emergency situations.
What sets Mitchell apart from other characters is his personal understanding of fear. Mitchell truly believes that disaster can strike at any moment and communicates this fear to clients; he is uninterested in the money he can make by exploiting other people’s fears, at least once the novelty of his newfound wealth has worn off. By the end of the novel, Mitchell cannot morally countenance participating in Future Days, in part because of the understanding he has come to about his own fear. While certain forms of fear are productive in that they can motivate people to act and find solutions to problems, fear often fails as a safeguard; it fixates on events that never happen while overlooking imminent threats, ruining one’s quality of life in the process. Although Jane insists that Future Days will weaponize fear only for good purposes, Mitchell no longer seems convinced that this is possible, focusing instead on living in the moment.
The Illusion of Control
Intertwined with the novel’s examination of fear is the theme of the illusion of control. Mitchell’s fundamental fear is that there are things in life he has no control over. This is of course true, as natural disasters like Hurricane Tammy demonstrate. However, Mitchell struggles to accept this, telling himself that with enough logic and preparation, he can anticipate future catastrophes and protect himself from them. It is only when faced with true disaster that Mitchell comes to terms with the fact that he never had any real control over the unexpected.
The very first chapter establishes that Mitchell is appalled by Elsa Bruner’s Brugada diagnosis. He expresses horror at the idea of Elsa’s heart stopping at any moment and even calls her a “worst case scenario” (10); she quite literally embodies the idea of unpredictable disaster. Mitchell typically relies on facts and logic to keep this idea at bay, and his intelligence does enable him to foresee certain events that others do not—e.g., the possibility that the drought in New York City will give way to a flood. However, this knowledge does not guarantee a positive outcome. Mitchell can instruct people on how to survive a disaster, but he cannot make them act. For that matter, Mitchell’s prediction of Hurricane Tammy fails to fully shield even Mitchell himself, as his feelings for Jane override his rationality and sense of self-preservation, leading him to remain in the city rather than to evacuate. Mitchell’s obsessive research and forecasting do not even insulate him from fear, although he tells himself while working at FutureWorld that his research has cured his anxiety. His continued nightmares about disasters reveal this to be self-deception, as does his ongoing fascination with Elsa, who represents not merely the inevitability of disaster but the possibility of living fully and happily in spite of it.
When Hurricane Tammy hits, Mitchell learns how little control he truly has. However, Mitchell responds by abandoning his anxiety and taking action. Mitchell instructs Jane to help him tape up the windows, which saves them when the glass shatters. He also convinces Jane to canoe with him to safety. When Mitchell takes such actions, he recognizes that while he cannot control the chaotic universe, he can control himself and his responses. Emboldened, Mitchell goes to Camp Ticonderoga in search of Elsa, implicitly seeking confirmation that he is on the right track. When Elsa is not at Camp Ticonderoga, another illusion shatters: He cannot know with certainty that the life he is choosing is the right one but can only trust his instincts as they come. By the time he chooses to remain at the Flatlands, he has fully embraced uncertainty and the limits of his power, including the fact that he cannot control other people. Although it is clear that Mitchell would like Jane to stay with him, their desires are at odds, and Mitchell accepts her departure with little fuss.
