1960 novel by John Hersey
The Child Buyer is John Hersey's 1960 novel about a project to engineer super-intelligent persons for a project whose aim is never definitely stated. Told entirely in the form of minutes from a State Senate Standing Committee, it relates the story of the appearance and efforts of a mysterious stranger in the small town of Pequot, and the repercussions of his attempt to buy a boy, Barry Rudd.
The novel is primarily a satire on the school system, although it also posits questions about intelligence, the validity of intelligence/personality tests, and the efficacy of attempts to quantify humanity. One of its major themes is corruption—in the stranger's (Wissey Jones's) relentless quest to buy Barry, Jones manages to persuade everyone concerned with the transaction, including Barry himself, to go along with him, primarily through favours (money, honorary degrees, positions, status, et al.), although Barry and his would-be defender, a Dr. Gozar, are convinced through a sort of desperate logic.
The novel, in its description of a non-existent mental-conditioning process possibly intended as a means of leaving Earth, approaches science fiction, although it is more properly put in the genre of speculative fiction.
The novel was shortlisted for the 1961 National Book Award for Fiction.
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