The Winner's Curse

Author’s Note

The idea for this novel came to me while sitting with my friend Vasiliki Skreta on a dark blue gym mat in the children’s playroom of our apartment building. Vasiliki is an economist, and we were discussing auctions. She mentioned the concept of the “winner’s curse.” Quite simply, it describes how the winner of an auction has also lost, because he or she has won by paying more than what the majority of bidders have decided the item is worth. Of course, no one knows what something might be worth in the future. The winner’s curse (at least, in economic theory) is about the very moment of winning, not its aftermath.

I was fascinated by this version of a Pyrrhic victory—to win and lose at the same time. I was tempted by the beauty of the term “winner’s curse,” which was first presented in a 1971 paper called “Competitive Bidding in High-Risk Situations,” by E. C. Capen, R. V. Clapp, and W. M. Campbell. I tried to think of a novel in which someone would win an auction that exacts a steep emotional price. It occurred to me: What if the item at auction were not a thing but a person? What might winning cost then?

My first thanks for The Winner’s Curse goes to Vasiliki. I must also acknowledge several texts that kept me company while writing. Although the world I’ve presented in these pages is my own and has no concrete connection to the real world, I was inspired by antiquity, in particular the Greco-Roman period after Rome had conquered Greece and enslaved its population in the expected way of the time; slavery was a common consequence of war. Two books helped me think about the mentality of that period: Marguerite Yourcenar’s novel Memoirs of Hadrian and Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War (which I paraphrase at one point). The poem that Kestrel reads in her library is very close to Ezra Pound’s opening of Canto I (which in turn echoes Homer’s The Odyssey): “And then went down to the ship, / Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea.”

So I give thanks to my reading … and to my readers. Many friends read and commented on The Winner’s Curse. Some read a chapter, others whole sections, and others multiple drafts. Thank you: Genn Albin, Marianna Baer, Betsy Bird, Elise Broach, Donna Freitas, Daphne Grab, Mordicai Knode, Kekla Magoon, Caragh O’Brien, Jill Santopolo, Eliot Schrefer, Natalie Van Unen, and Robin Wasserman. Your advice has been indispensable.

Thanks also to those who have discussed this project with me, and offered ideas or moral support (often both!): Kristin Cashore, Jenny Knode, Thomas Philippon, and Robert Rutkoski (who came up with the phrase “the code of the call”). Nicole Cliffe, Denise Klein, Kate Moncrief, and Ivan Werning had really useful things to say about horses. David Verchere, as usual, was my go-to expert on ships and sailing. Tiffany Werth, Georgi McCarthy, and many Facebook friends chimed in on questions about language.

I have two small, sweet sons, and couldn’t have written this book without help taking care of them. Thanks to my parents, in-laws, and babysitters: Monica Ciucurel, Shaida Khan, Georgi McCarthy, Nora Meguetaoui, Christiane and Jean-Claude Philippon, and Marilyn and Robert Rutkoski.

I’m very grateful to those who look out for me. My wise and warm agent, Charlotte Sheedy, and her team: Mackenzie Brady, Carly Croll, and Joan Rosen. My insightful editor, Janine O’Malley, who makes every book so much better. Simon Boughton, for valuing details. Joy Peskin, for being such a wonderful advocate. Everybody else at FSG and Macmillan, for their verve and delight in bringing books into this world, especially Elizabeth Clark, Gina Gagliano, Angus Killick, Kate Leid, Kathryn Little, Karen Ninnis, Karla Reganold, Caitlin Sweeny, Allison Verost, Ksenia Winnicki, and Jon Yaged. Thank you.