Best Offer Wins

In Best Offer Wins, Marisa Kashino blends elements of domestic thriller and satire to craft a narrative that is both suspenseful and darkly humorous. Using familiar domestic settings, domestic thrillers explore questions about societal norms and practices. Best Offer Wins offers a commentary on the idea of the perfect family, commodified desire, and the dangers of obsession.

Satirical domestic thrillers have exploded in popularity in recent years, especially since the publication of Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl. Flynn uses an unreliable narrator (a key trope within the domestic thriller sub-genre) to satirize and critique marriage, media sensationalism, and the idea of the “perfect” spouse. Its protagonists lie to and manipulate one another, and as the narrative progresses it becomes apparent that much of their relationship is performative. Best Offer Wins also features an unreliable narrator and also satirizes picture-perfect family life by exposing the gulf between the appearance of Ian and Margo’s relationship and the reality.

Satirical domestic thrillers often employ violence and explore the impact of violent acts on individuals and their relationships. In Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer (2018), a Lagos-born nurse with a complicated family history helps her sister cover up an escalating series of serial killings.