Review: Loser Takes All

Loser Takes All by Graham Greene
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My ongoing quest to read a book from every country left me with very few options for Monaco, but Graham Greene wrote a novella that manages to be about a brand new marriage with a big age difference and gambling, set of course in Monte Carlo.

I always find Graham Greene to have a lot to say about relationships and life; here are a few quotations:

"It would be so terrible if we became a couple. You know what I mean. You with your paper. Me with my knitting."

"'Why bother? Our marriage was going to be unlucky - you've read the omens, haven't you?'
'I don't care,' she said. 'I'd rather be unlucky with you than lucky with anyone else.'"

"I like being somewhere without footprints."

This novel was originally published in the mid 1950s. If you Google Monte Carlo now, there are a lot of articles about if/why Monte Carlo is "so over" and the rich have found new playgrounds. But Loser Takes All shows it in its height.

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