Title: The child buyer : a novel in the form of hearings before the Standing Committee on Education, Welfare, & Public Morality of a certain State Senate, investigating the conspiracy of Mr. Wissey Jones, with others, to purchase a male child.
Authors: Hersey, John, 1914-1993
Publisher: Knopf,
Year: 1960
Subjects: Conspiracies United States Fiction.; Education United States Fiction.; Conspiracies Fiction; Satire, American.
Abstract: "Written in the form of a legislative hearing. A satire with overtones of horror on American public education, with special barbs for superintendents, school psychologists, doting teachers, PTA leaders, materialist parents, and ignorant legislators. An exposé of the corruptible ego in each man." "This powerful indictment of the American educational system and the material values placed on intelligence in our society takes the form of a Senate hearing. The Senate investigation concerns the attempts of Wissey Jones to buy Barry Rudd, a precociously brilliant child. Through a series of medical procedures and the use of drugs, the child is transformed into an extremely efficient thinking machine. That the child's personality is of secondary importance compared to the benefits to be derived from this supercomputer is at the crux of the argument. Barry's parents and the local educational authorities are initially opposed but are slowly won over by Jones's appeals to their vanity."