Karen Pinkus

Why I did not write Best Offer Wins, by Marisa Kashino

If you know me you know that I do not generally like “commercial fiction.” We could debate what is meant by this term, but for now, let’s just say I like few works by living authors, and even fewer who publish with major presses (Celadon, an imprint of Macmillan) and probably none that have been a Good Morning America Book Club pick. But I did enjoy Best Offer Wins! I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoy hate-watching some streaming limited series focused on the sort of characters that I would not like in real life but I am curious to see how things will turn out. And maybe, in spite of myself, I root for the protagonist because the author/director has made them irresistible.

Given my limited tolerance for this type of fiction, you might wonder why I got this book, let alone why I read it to the end. I had seen a synopsis and it seemed to be close in theme to my forthcoming novel, Nuda proprietà. A woman is desperate for a house in a very tight market. How far will she go? SPOILER ALERT: In Kashino’s book, she will go all the way. To be sure, statistically, women aren’t killers so if you write one, you may find yourself having to explain a certain pathological origin story, an anomaly, or a circumstance that leads to the act. In the case of Best Offer Wins, the circumstances are external. The burning desire for a home (and possibly a baby, although that is secondary) in the post-COVID inflationary DC market is powerful that the reader doesn’t require the kind of analysis of motivation one finds in other crime fiction. There is a degree of the comic here, and Kashino handles it perfectly. It’s the kind of book I might wish I could write, but I don’t have the ability to do so.

When I was working on my book about a 1953 Italian crime, the Montesi Scandal, I had to contend with the question of a resolution to the case. A few possible scenarios: 1. There was information out there that I could have tried to pry from some of the protagonists who were elderly or dead at the time of my own research. But this was the period I came to realize that unlike Kashino, I am not a journalist. I hate asking questions and I am embarrassed by answers. 2. There was information out there that I could have sought in archives. Long story for when we see each other in person: No. 3. There was no information out there but I could make up a resolution to the case. This was suggested to me by a producer in Hollywood (who also said that so many names ending in vowels would be difficult for a US audience), where I lived at the time. It would mean a fictionalization of the case, which would be difficult for an academic book but it might help me sell a treatment or even a novel. But I wasn’t able to do this, at least not at the time. I would have had to make a decision and that would have meant excluding others.

Best Offer Wins achieves closure in a way that I envy. You should not be surprised to find it serialized on a streaming platform of your choice, soon.