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A review by benjamin_oc
The Auctioneer by Joan Samson
5.0
Joan Samson’s The Auctioneer is among the most impressive debut novels I’ve read. It’s an immense loss to readers that Samson died before writing a second.
Perly Dunsmore, a charismatic auctioneer, arrives in Harlowe, New Hampshire with plans to help its citizens sell *everything*. Those who resist and those who do his bidding all find they do so at their own peril. Grady Hendrix notes in his introduction that contemporary marketing materials compared it to Shirley Jackson, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Samson wrote The Auctioneer as a reaction to—or at least in conversation with—Jackson’s “The Summer People” and “The Lottery.”
Perly Dunsmore, a charismatic auctioneer, arrives in Harlowe, New Hampshire with plans to help its citizens sell *everything*. Those who resist and those who do his bidding all find they do so at their own peril. Grady Hendrix notes in his introduction that contemporary marketing materials compared it to Shirley Jackson, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Samson wrote The Auctioneer as a reaction to—or at least in conversation with—Jackson’s “The Summer People” and “The Lottery.”