Marisa Kashino Shares Her Favorite Anti-Heroes in Fiction

You’ve heard of this little upstart already, right? So, all I’ll say is that Amy Dunne is the obvious standard-bearer of the category.

On the day her twin sister dies in a car crash, Cady meets a stranger in the hospital waiting room and becomes inexplicably fixated—stalking her, befriending her under false pretenses, and on and on. Told entirely in the second person, this is one of the eeriest, most claustrophic-feeling stories I’ve ever read. I heard the author say in an interview that she wanted readers to feel like Cady was “whispering” the story into their ear. Mission fully, chillingly accomplished.

As the title implies, the protagonist here isn’t the worst offender. But Korede is an enabler of the highest order, always on standby with a bucket of bleach and an empty car trunk to help cover up her sister’s dark deeds. As with any good morally gray character, I wanted to reach through the page and shake some sense into her. But thanks to a deftly constructed backstory, I couldn’t help but feel affection for both of these deeply flawed sisters.

A ticking time bomb of a book that I read in a single day. Piglet is two weeks from her wedding when her fiancé admits a shocking betrayal that sends her into one of the most vividly rendered psychological spirals I’ve ever encountered in a novel. Even as her antics made me cringe, I was firmly in Piglet’s corner the entire time, hoping against hope that in the end, she’d do the right thing.

The protagonist in the first book—Jacob Finch Bonner, a professor who becomes a bestselling novelist after ripping off student work—might be morally gray. But then comes Anna Williams-Bonner, Jacob’s lovely, much wickeder wife. When she takes center stage in The Sequel, it’s a real “hold my beer” moment. As tenacious and clever as Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne, I had no trouble at all cheering Anna on.

Winifred Knotty, the new governess at the Pounds family estate, is the babysitter of your sickest, goriest, most depraved nightmares. I read this one by a hotel pool, and while I wouldn’t advise trusting Winifred with your houseplants, let alone your children, she made me laugh so hard I attracted dirty looks from the other sunbathers. If your sense of humor is as twisted as mine, you’ll be sad when this ends (even if you do feel a tad nauseous).

Oh June Heyward, I really can’t stand you! And that’s exactly the point. In her despicable protagonist, Kuang has created the perfect mirror to reflect (and skewer) the dearth of diversity in the publishing industry. Just as frothy and fast-paced as it is smart and provocative, I thought a lot about how I might strike a similar balance while creating Margo and satirizing the housing crisis in Best Offer Wins.

Marisa Kashino was a journalist for 17 years, most recently at The Washington Post. She spent the bulk of her career at Washingtonian magazine, writing long-form features and overseeing the real estate and home design coverage. She grew up near Seattle, graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in journalism and political science. She lives in the DC area with her husband, two dogs, and two cats. Best Offer Wins is her first novel.

Photo Credit: Laura Metzler

An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s darkly hilarious debut novel, Best Offer Wins, the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success—and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams?