Book- The Child Buyer

The Child Buyer was one of the few John Hersey books that I was not wildly enthusiastic about. Not that it was badly written, but the plot was odd, and I could not connect to the themes in the novel either. And while the style was unique, using a state senate hearing to tell the story, I thought the characters were charactatures, and the whole things together a bit...well, weird.

This state senate hearings take place because three senators are looking into an accusations that a man has come into one of their towns looking to buy a child. And they want to get to the bottom of it. The lead senator Senator Mansfield, and his counsel seem to only want to make a name for themselves by pursuing it this matter, while another senator (Senator Skypack) is an arch-conservative war hawk and the third, a senile, petty old man. Now these three are not full fledged characters...there is no dimension to them at all. And their witnesses, the people of the town, are as fully one-dimensional as the senators.

As the hearing unfold, we find out that the child buyer is working for a firm that has contracts with the defense department, and he wants this kid because they feel he is a genius. But the use they are going to put him to is so far off the grid, that it loses its impact.

Now Hersey may have been writing this to respond to something in the culture at the time. But it does not translate well at all to our time frame, unlike his previously read, The Conspiracy. It seems far-fetched and a bit ridiculous. Add that to his characters, and this was not my favorite book of Hersey's. Luckily, he is so good with words, that that aspect gave me some enjoyment.