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The Child Buyer: A Novel in the Form of Hearings Before the Standing Committee on Education, Welfare, and Public Morality of a Certain State Senate by John Hersey
(Published by Penguin)
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A flamboyantly dressed stranger rides into the small town of Pequot on a collapsible motorcycle. He has come to purchase the Pequot’s most “outstanding” child; a 10-year-old boy named Barry Rudd. Initially the idea of buying a child causes uproar in the town but gradually The Child Buyer, Mr Wissey Jones, wins over the townspeople one by one – playing to their weaknesses, their greed and pride. As the buyer twists the town’s people there is violence, vigilantism and disintegration of personal conviction.
But what does The Child Buyer want with Barry?
The Child Buyer is in charge of “materials procurement” for United Lymphomiloid of America Incorporated and his intentions for Barry are shrouded in secrecy as a matter of “extremely high national defence” (“a project, a long range government contract, fifty years, highly specialised, top secret…”)
The story is told through the minutes of a state congressional hearing set up to get to the bottom of recent events and ultimately decide if the boy can and should be sold. Events since the buyer’s arrival are unfurled through testimonies of the townspeople, Barry and his parents.
The characters of the witnesses leap off the page, giving a cinematic feeling (it put me in mind of 12 Angry Men). The Senators overseeing the procedure are caricatures – the deaf one, the un-PC one, etc – but they add a air of comedy to the sinister events. Indeed their flaws add to the social commentary of the work as a whole, pointing to trials up to the present day where serious fault can be found, the injustice of the justice system and the impossibility of complete unbiased opinion.
The mystery of United Lymphomiloid’s plans for the children they have collected and Barry’s ultimate fate pull you to the end of this work in the hopes that all will be revealed.
You will not be disappointed.
The Child Buyer is more than fiction. It is a sharp commentary and criticism of education systems, child psychology and rearing, politics, economics and a philosophical discussion on the nature of intelligence – Barry’s friend Charles is far more street wise and savvy but not considered intelligent, where as Barry’s capacity of retention and understanding of book learning is treated with suspicion – and humanity.
It is also a great lesson in manipulation; of being fed the company line and buying it. A town is turned from their instinctual feeling of what is wrong to accepting the manipulation of a ‘higher authority’. This book was written over forty years ago, but the conversations it provokes are very much relevant (and unsolved) today. 
