Marisa Kashino’s ‘Best Offer Wins,’ reveals the dark side of house hunting

Who among us hasn’t been sucked into at least one Zillow-induced existential spiral? Or seethed when seeing a frenemy smugly post about their fancy new four-bedroom? 

It’s not hard to feel bitter about the housing market these days. But what if that bitterness curdled into something worse—like an all consuming need to obtain your dream house by any means necessary? That’s the premise of Marisa Kashino’s debut novel, the darkly funny thriller Best Offer Wins, which is out now. Believe me when I say that this is a shockingly good read—so much so that Greta Lee (of Past Lives and Tron: Ares) is already planning on adapting it into a TV show for Hulu in which she’ll potentially star as the unhinged yet relatable lead.

The story starts out innocently enough: 37-year-old Margo Miyake is desperate to move out of the cramped apartment she shares with her husband and into a nice house where they can start a family. After losing 11 bidding wars, she finally stumbles upon an unlisted home she’ll stop at nothing to get. Sh*t gets dark fast as Margo stalks the homeowners and resorts to increasingly unethical methods.

Beyond its entertainment value, the book taps into one of our core fixations as a society. Despite how out of reach home ownership is for many Millennials and Gen Z-ers, it still looms large in our dreams (or nightmares) as a symbol of success and maturity. It’s the ultimate marker that you’ve “made it.” Meanwhile, the prices climb and climb.

This is one reason I was eager to talk to Kashino about the book. The other is that the main character is of Japanese descent (a trait I share with her and Kashino), but she’s portrayed in a way that’s rare in books and TV—which is to say, it’s part of who she is, but it is not a major part of the plot. She just happens to be Asian American, which is a refreshingly welcome perspective.

I spoke with Kashino about why she chose to write about house hunting and how race factors into all of this, or not.

This interview was edited for clarity and length.

Annie Atherton: You share a lot of demographic characteristics with the main character (general age, where she lives, her ethnic background, etc). How much is she based on you?
Marisa Kashino: Because I was writing it very quickly, I did give her some of my own biographical details—just because that required no extra research. Her childhood is not my childhood, but the thing that Margo and I do share in common is that she, as I did, came to DC feeling very much like an outsider. So she is also from the Seattle area, just as I was when I moved here. I come from a great family, but not a fancy, wealthy, well-connected family. And when you move to a city like DC, all of a sudden I was surrounded by people that I had never been surrounded by; people that had been born into wealth, and had gone to the same Ivy League schools that their parents went to. They seemed to know so much more about everything than I did. It is very intimidating. And I felt like, “Oh my gosh, am I ever gonna catch up with these people? How am I ever gonna make it here?” 

Margo definitely feels that way, too. The difference is that luckily, I got over that. I don't think Margo ever fully did. She's in her late 30s and carries this sort of inferiority complex, and feels very determined to prove that she is just as good and just as deserving as all of the people around her who were born on third base and (can pay for a house in all cash).

AA: How does the ability to own a certain type of house play into that inferiority complex?
MK: Her parents were very working class and had a pretty challenging relationship with home ownership. So she has some pretty specific traumas from her childhood that tie into having a home, losing a home, feeling like you're lesser than your peers because you don't have as nice of a home. That is a big motivator for her, and a big reason why she feels so strongly that the dream home is the key to everything else that she wants to create a dream life. 

And she's an extreme case, but I do think that that general concept isn't so far fetched, and that it actually is pretty relatable. I think we've all been fed this idea that the American Dream is centered around home ownership. And particularly as Millennials, we are just deeply impacted by the housing crisis and housing affordability. But I think it feels maybe like an extra-hard punch to the gut because our parents’ generation, the Boomer generation, built so much wealth from buying affordable homes and building equity in their homes. So I think if you grew up in a middle class household with parents who worked hard, and told you that if you work hard too, you can own a home, and now you get out into the real world, and that is just not the case, it feels particularly offensive.

AA: On top of that, talking about money and class is still kind of taboo in a lot of families or communities.
MK: Yeah. The other stress for Margo is that her husband, Ian, comes from a very different upbringing—an upper-middle class family, a very stable home, and he, for those reasons, does not feel the urgency of their house hunt as deeply. So that creates a lot of tension in their marriage. And I do think that that is also relatable. I think when there's a couple hunting for a home together, often one partner is more involved or more determined than the other, and that is a pretty obvious conflict starter.

AA: It seems like his family just represents this platonic ideal of a certain type of American family, which is usually white.
MK: He's white, a baseball player, Golden Boy, has very loving, devoted parents. So he's a component of the dream life that Margo is building. She thinks she's got the marriage, got this career that she's built for herself. The missing pieces are now, she needs the home, and she really wants badly to become a mother, and is dealing with some fertility struggles as well, which only compounds the psychological spiral that she goes through.

AA: When I think about this character in relation to her background, I found it interesting that she is Asian, but it’s not really a main issue. It’s a fact, but it’s not a plot point. That’s not that common in popular stories.
MK: I'm so glad that you recognize that, that was something I thought a lot about when I wrote the book. There are some microaggressions that she encounters—like the white mom at the park who assumes she's the nanny and doesn’t speak English because she's Asian. But I wanted to write a book that was not about being Asian American, but that was centered around an Asian American protagonist, because I think there is a lot of room for that. 

AA: Do you specify which generation she is?
MK: I thought of her as yonsei (fourth generation). But I’ve had white people sometimes read the book and assume that she's an immigrant because she's Asian.

AA: What can you say about the TV show adaptation?
MK: Greta Lee assembled a team to come make an offer on the media. It's too early to have any official casting, but Lee is an executive producer, and the intent is that she would also play Margo. We do not have a director yet. We do have a showrunner, which is Suzanne Heathcote (Killing Eve).