55 pages • 1-hour read
Best Offer Wins
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Themes
Content Warning: This section includes discussion of graphic violence and death.
The Consequences of Unscrupulousness and Deception
Margo engages in a series of escalating missteps that eventually cross the boundary into criminal territory, with serious repercussions. Although Margo does, in part, achieve her dream of raising a family in the perfect home, she pays a high price for her behavior, revealing the consequences of unscrupulousness and deception.
Margo’s deceptions begin when she runs into Jack and lies to him, then engineers a subsequent meeting with Jack at his yoga class. As her lies come to the surface during their disastrous dinner, Margo thinks only of how to alter her plan so that they can still buy the house, not of the lines she’s crossed and that Jack might actually feel betrayed and used. She shows a similar lack of scruples as she begins investigating Curtis for potential blackmail material. She rationalizes her mistreatment of Curtis in part because she (and many other people) finds him unlikeable, but she also never considers what the consequences of her subterfuge might be for Curtis’s marriage or his career. Even after leaving a body in Jack and Curtis’s home, she still fails to see her actions through any other framework besides her personal goal: It does not occur to her that being at the center of a true-crime media frenzy might be distressing for Jack, Curtis, and Penny.
Margo also damages her relationship with Ian. She will feel no remorse for her actions at all when she learns about his affair, but even in the weeks leading up to that revelation she shows little concern for Ian’s feelings or his broader concerns about the drastic turn her behavior has taken. She notes the stress that the house-hunting process has placed upon her and Ian and cites an uptick in petty arguments as evidence, but she doesn’t ever consider the emotional toll that marital discord might be taking on Ian. She also brushes off his ethical concerns, categorizing them as part of Ian’s generally too-milquetoast-for-her taste personality. Even when he admonishes her for her ethical pitfalls, angrily telling her: “You stalked this guy,” she ignores his fears (43). Ian responds by looking for emotional (and physical) support elsewhere.
Toward the end of the novel, Margo destroys the last vestiges of her moral restraint and ruins her chances of having a truly happy home life. She becomes a violent criminal when she commits two murders, again with no remorse. She values the house more than Alex’s or Natalie’s lives, and never shows sign of feeling badly for resorting to murder to be the last offer standing on Jack and Curtis’s house. Neither, as Margo argues, deserves their death. Margo does end up with the house, the husband, the baby, and the dog. She does, at least on the surface, manifest her dreams. She does, however, have to prioritize house and child over a happy marriage, but initially she seems comfortable with that choice. She needs Ian to execute her plan, noting: “I can’t qualify for the mortgage on a 1.3 million dollar house without him” (252).
Margo’s dream life thus looks perfect only at first glance. Ian busies himself with renovation projects so as to spend as much time away from Margo as possible, and it is evident that their marriage is one in name only. As the novel ends, Margo discovers another, hidden cell phone in Ian’s bag. Her dream life, rooted as it is now in manipulation and simmering animosity, is far more tenuous than she’d like it to be.
The Myth of the Picture-Perfect Family
Best Offer Wins interrogates the myth of the picture-perfect family by emphasizing the gap between appearances and reality, even in what seems like ideal families. In trying desperately to secure the outward trappings of what Margo regards as representing the ideal family life, she slowly destroys the trust and love that actually form the basis of a true family life.
Margo is consumed by the idea of creating a perfect family because her own childhood was unhappy. Margo’s father failed to hold a steady job and ultimately bankrupted the family through his misguided investments. The family lost their house to foreclosure and Margo’s parents ultimately divorced. While other girls’ mothers built their lives around their children, Margo could tell that she was little more than an afterthought to her parents. Part of what motivates her, even at great personal cost, to create the “perfect family” as an adult is that she wants to raise a child who can have the upbringing she herself never did.
Margo fails in that effort in large part through her own ethical failings and because she and Ian become more and more seriously estranged without attempting to fix their marriage. On the surface, Margo and Ian have a functional relationship. However, Margo’s fixation on the house and unwillingness to compromise creates a strain between them, while Ian is ultimately revealed to be more complex than he seems. His response to the stress of the home-purchasing process and his escalating disagreements with Margo is infidelity. Margo learns of Ian’s betrayal only because she finds evidence, not because Ian’s behavior alerts her to the possibility of his deception. He proves himself Margo’s equal at lying, deceit, and acts of serious omission. As in the case with Margo’s childhood family, appearances belie reality, and even marriages that seem stable reveal serious issues when subject to serious scrutiny.
Margo and Ian remain together in spite of their acts of betrayal, but the novel’s ending becomes further evidence that their outwardly stable family is a myth. Margo seems to have gotten what she wanted, and yet, her marriage exists in name only. Ian throws himself into finishing the house’s basement to distract himself from Margo’s heinous crimes and to avoid her. They no longer spend time together and, although Margo does not realize it, they are unlikely to provide their child with the kind of stable home that Ian grew up with and Margo dreams about. The novel also hints that Ian has begun another affair. Although Margo seems able to ignore much of the reality of her marriage, the broader implication is that she and Ian have not created the picture-perfect family she wanted, because it is now all a sham.
The Dangers of Consumer Capitalism
Best Offer Wins uses Margo’s experiences and obsession with her dream home as part of its broader social commentary. Through Margo’s increasingly extreme fixation and behavior, the author interrogates American consumerism as it intersects with the real estate market, calling into question the notion that happiness can be purchased and exposing the dangers of consumer capitalism.
The urgency of Margo and Ian’s home search is, at least to Margo, rooted in her belief that they cannot have a baby in the small apartment they are living after having sold their starter home. Margo’s assertions aren’t entirely accurate: Their starter home did have enough space for a child, and in fact many other DC residents raise happy children in rowhouses and other smaller properties. Many parents also raise happy families in apartments. Margo and Ian do not need to move into a house before they have a baby. Margo’s insistence that they cannot have a baby before finding the “perfect” home shows how Margo has also fallen prey to the idea that wealth and spending lead to happiness. Her antipathy toward Erika is the product of envy: To Margo it seems that Erika and Heath’s ability to buy a lavish home is the source of their contentment. It does not occur to her that Erika might be satisfied with her life not because of her house’s price tag, but because she has a successful career, a stable marriage, and a new baby.
Margo is sure that she cannot be happy until she and Ian purchase a home, but the kind of home she sets her sights on further reveals the extent to which she buys in to American consumer culture. Margo wants the perfect home. She wants an expensive house with curb appeal in the most desirable neighborhood. The DC real estate market is difficult to navigate, but Margo and Ian would have an easier time if they were to broaden the scope of their search. They clearly do not have the funds to purchase in the hippest area, as evidenced by how many of their offers are outbid by people with cash who offer substantially more over asking price. Rather than look at more affordable options, Margo’s fixation with desirability only grows. Here, too, she shows evidence of having been inculcated into a belief system in which high price tags allow the consumer to buy happiness.
Margo’s obsession with aesthetics and home design is further evidence of her obsession with consumerism, and it additionally illustrates the way that social media intersects with consumption. Margo pores over glossy, stylized home design accounts, fixating in particular on Erika’s designer. She is drawn to Jack and Curtis’s house, after their tour, by how well and how lavishly it has been designed and furnished. Although Margo claims to want the perfect home so that she can provide a child with the kind of stability that she lacked during her own childhood, Margo is not always a reliable narrator. While she might claim that she just wants the best for her child, her actions suggest that what she actually wants is the kind of home that could grace the cover of a design magazine, revealing how consumerism and materialism drive her throughout the narrative.
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