MILES PARKS, HOST:
Buying a home is extremely stressful. It's often the biggest financial decision most people will ever make, and that can make people go a little bit nuts in the process. Sound like you? Then you might have something in common with the main character of Marisa Kashino's new novel, "Best Offer Wins." I spoke with Kashino and began by asking her about how reporting on the real estate industry in D.C. inspired her first novel.
MARISA KASHINO: I thought of her as - I don't want to say typical D.C., but we are, you know, a city that's home to a lot of ambitious people.
PARKS: Strivers.
KASHINO: Yes, striver is the word for her 'cause she is also self-made. I mean, she comes from very humble beginnings. That is also a big motivator for her 'cause she looks around in some of the rooms that she finds herself in in D.C., and she sees a lot of people with trust funds and a lot of people who can bid all cash. And she is not one of them, and she feels she has worked 10 times as hard for everything she has as a lot of the people around her. So she really does believe that she has been pushed to a point now where she has to take matters into her own hands. And life is not behaving the way that she thinks it should, so she is going to sort of bend it in a way that she thinks that she's earned.
PARKS: I will say, for the first 100 pages, she's pretty deeply unlikable. It's pretty hard to - at least I found her that way.
KASHINO: Yes.
PARKS: There's a specific dinner party scene that I will think about and cringe probably for the next four weeks.
KASHINO: (Laughter).
PARKS: But then there's a moment as I'm reading this book where I start rooting for her, and I don't think anything changes about her. I guess I'm wondering, why does that happen?
KASHINO: I think even if her tactics appall you, even if some of her views appall you, I do think that her predicament is very relatable. And she is, in a lot of ways, an underdog. So I do think there is a human instinct to root for the underdog. I think the other thing that I hope is that she's funny. So even as she says or thinks terrible things and does terrible things, at least she's making you laugh and I think, in some instances, saying the quiet parts out loud that probably a lot of people think in their heads but are not able to express.
PARKS: Well, it's interesting to hear you refer to her as an underdog because to be fair, she makes a lot of money. I mean, these are - her and her husband are offering more than $1 million for these houses that they're trying to acquire, which is - I mean, that is an extremely privileged position, like, the top 1% of the country, of the world, probably. And yet, she doesn't feel rich.
KASHINO: Yes, and that was a really specific purposeful choice that I made. She does have so much, but all she can see is what she doesn't have. I mean, if you're a millennial in a big city trying to buy a home, $1 million is often the entry point. She's an underdog in the sense that she has worked very hard for everything she has. She doesn't come from a fancy school or a fancy family. She doesn't have a bunch of connections. She sort of built this career for herself. So she thinks she's earned the dream life, and the dream home is, like, the big missing piece of that puzzle for her. So I think underdog in comparison to a lot of the people around her who have had things, she thinks, you know, kind of handed to them, sort of born on third base types.
PARKS: Will Margo ever truly be happy?
KASHINO: I don't want to spoil the end of the book, of course, but yeah, I think probably not. I mean, I think when you put so much weight into material things making - as the things that are going to make you happy and fulfill you, I think that's sort of a losing game.
PARKS: The other thing that this book gets at is this very specific moment a lot of people experience in their late 20s, early 30s 'cause she's also trying to get pregnant throughout this book as well.
KASHINO: Right.
PARKS: And there's this moment in early adulthood where you start feeling this pressure of, like, everyone else is getting something or moving forward, and if you're not getting there, then it starts to feel sort of - the temperature starts rising internally for a lot of people. I mean, is this book about that period as well?
KASHINO: Yes, and specifically that period as a woman - so she is feeling all of the pressures of, you know, a late 30s woman who thought by now she would have the house and the baby and all of these sort of kind of totems of an Instagram-perfect life. And it just has not fallen into place for her as easily or as quickly as she had hoped that it would. For Margo, that pressure cooker leads to a lot of internal rage. And this, like, simmering rage is an engine for her that propels her through the book to do a lot of despicable things. I will say that writing that part of the character was incredibly fun and cathartic for me because, you know, I think most women feel some degree of rage right now. I know I certainly do, and I think that piece of her character is something that will resonate for a lot of readers.
PARKS: Do you have any advice for people who don't yet own a home about navigating this? - 'cause I will say it reads a little bit like a cautionary tale in terms of how people should think about it and whether they should think about doing this at all.
KASHINO: Well, I'm so glad that you said cautionary tale and not playbook...
(LAUGHTER)
PARKS: Oh, no (ph).
KASHINO: ...Because I will say, if you decide to use this as a playbook, I'm going to wash my hands right now and say, not my responsibility.
PARKS: Not liable, not liable, yeah.
KASHINO: Right. You know, I think there has been a real shifting or there is an ongoing shifting of what the American dream entails. I think most, you know, elder millennials like me, you know, we're at a point now where we're trying to hit these adult milestones, and for our parents, homeownership was sort of the centerpiece of the American dream - and for our grandparents. And I think for a lot of this generation, that still has been very unattainable. So I think there is, like, a little bit of rethinking of - what does homeownership actually mean? Is it that important? You know, and so I think we're kind of living that in real time, actually.
PARKS: That's author Marisa Kashino. Her new book, "Best Off Wins," is out now. Thank you so much for talking with us.
KASHINO: Yeah, thank you. This was so much fun.
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