Fair Warning: A Novel [Hardcover]

Robert Olen Butler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 2002

'Perhaps my fate was sealed when I sold my three-year-old sister'. And so began Amy Dickerson's lifelong fascination with the art and exhilaration of the sale-Ambitious, winsome, and ceaselessly charismatic, Amy is the star employee of an auction house catering to the shopping pheromones of the rich and powerful. She turns the pitch into her creative art, using her abundant talents; wit, charm, knowledge, and above all an outstanding ability to read people and intuit their deepest desires. Her customers are intoxicated with love for the objects that define them and thrilled by the act of making them their own. And sometimes, such as when a mysterious man locks eyes with her as she give 'fair warning' before sounding the auction gavel, that object is Amy herself. From one of the most versatile and highly acclaimed writers of fiction, "Fair Warning" is a sweeping, fast-moving and alluringly intimate meditation on the possibility of love in a world where everyone must own or be owned.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Writers should be wary of titles that can be used against them. Fair Warning is just what the reader may need when considering this sparkling but featherweight depiction of the auction world. In his 11th novel, celebrated writer Robert Olen Butler explores the allure of possession. Amy Dickerson is a charismatic and penetrating auctioneer, the star of her New York auction house, who feels as comfortable flirting from the podium as extolling the virtues of a minor Rembrandt nude. Needless to say, she's slender, rich, and beautiful. Enter Alain Bouchard, the charming, well-educated, and too-good-to-be-true Frenchman who is buying her auction house--and trying to acquire Amy too. Although there are some lovely passages in Fair Warning, and it avoids the stock romantic ending that it appears to lean toward, Butler relies too much on the glamour of great wealth. Ultimately, he ends up short-changing the reader. --Regina Marler

From Library Journal

In a novel based on an award-winning short story, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Butler (A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain) posits a theory: in this world, everyone must own or be owned. As a high-profile New York auctioneer, transplanted Texan Amy Dickerson knows this well. She sees it reflected both in the items she tempts her clients with and in her closest relationships. Amy has never allowed herself to be vulnerable to love, her sister's marriage is on the rocks, and her entire family struggles with the memory of her philandering father, who isolated his wife and carefully parceled out his emotions with his daughters. Amy's independence is tested by a gentle and sophisticated suitor who happens to be her new boss; he may or may not be able to break through her barriers. Butler is very much in romance-novel territory here, but he transcends the formula with his usual aptitude for finding exactly the right words to make the familiar patterns of love and desire seem fresh again. An excellent introduction to readers unfamiliar with Butler's work; highly recommended.
- Marc Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1st edition (January 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871138336
• ISBN-13: 978-0871138330
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,263,079 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Done Romance, October 24, 2002

By 

Elizabeth Hendry (New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fair Warning: A Novel (Hardcover)

Fair Warning is the first of Butler's novels that I have read and therefore, I came to the novel with no expectations, other than the hope of finding a good read. Fair Warning is an enjoyable, quick read--a sort of sophisticated romance novel. I think, based on reading other reviews on these pages, if you come to this work expecting something like Butler has done before, you may be disappointed. If, however, you want to read a romance for grownups, this is your novel. It is the story of Amy Dickerson, a 40 year old auctioneer with some personal issues to resolve--her father, her mother, her failed love life. She becomes involved with two men as the novel progresses and begins to resolve some of those issues. She eventually falls in love. Not much else, but it is a quick compelling read which some readers will probably really enjoy. You just have to be careful that you are one of them.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars AN INTRIGUING PEEK AT THE RICH AND ACQUISITIVE, January 16, 2002

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fair Warning: A Novel (Hardcover)

Pulitzer Prize winning author Robert Olen Butler ( A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain, 1993; Mr. Spaceman, 2000, etc) takes us to what is for many unfamiliar territory - the posh, privileged world of auction, where people are defined by what they have, what they want, and what they're willing to pay to get it.

In this sphere of acquisition collectors say, "Yes. Yes. I will embrace these things. I will treasure these things. I will own these things so that I might possess a little of what the world is all about. It is like identity, is it not? I own this thing, therefore I am?"

It is also a world where beautiful, 40-year-old Amy Dickerson reigns as star auctioneer for New York City's most prestigious auction house, Nichols and Gray. Her perception, panache, and palaver enable her to sell an unassuming Renoir for more than twice its value in a business "built on the three `d's': debt, divorce, and death."

Perhaps Amy's future was determined when as a child in Houston she sold Missy, her 3-year-old sister. She stood before neighborhood children practicing an art she'd learned attending cattle auctions with her father.

"Ladies and gentleman," Amy intoned, "no greater or more complete perfection of animal beauty ever stood on two legs than the little girl who stands before you. She has prize-winning breeding and good teeth..."

Whatever the case, Amy is at the top professionally but still on the first rung in her personal life. With two throw-away lovers in her immediate past she is intrigued by Trevor, he of the dark eyes and recently deceased mother whose apartment is crammed with Victoriana. Yet, there is something unsettling about the man who at the last minute decides he cannot part with his mother's belongings.

Meanwhile, Amy's widowed mother calls and begs Amy to return to Houston to auction all of her father's possessions, items the older woman can no longer bear to look at. This visit causes Amy to reassess her relationship with her father, a tall , broad shouldered cowman who never understood why she didn't remain with him to run the family cattle business. Not only that but she comes to wonder exactly who she is and what she is meant to do. Is Earth simply a place where everyone owns or is owned?

Enter Alain Bouchard, wealthy and exciting Frenchman, who is buying Nichols and Gray and gives every sign that he wishes to obtain Amy as well. He offers her a more than lucrative contract to remain with the auctions house and promises a trip to "his" Paris.

Yet, as with Trevor, Amy eventually senses that Alain may not be the perfect lover after all. Once in his apartment she appraises it with a connoisseur's eye and more - she finds a hidden cache that is both provocative and revealing.

Robert Olen Butler has created a strong, interesting character with Amy. But she is a woman with whom it is hard to empathize. Her tough, cynical exterior belie the notion that she has a heart to be broken.

Nonetheless, Fair Warning is an intriguing peek at the glamorous rich who are propelled by their "shopping pheromones."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Return to Butler, April 6, 2002

By 

Timothy Haugh (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fair Warning: A Novel (Hardcover)

I first heard of Robert Olen Butler when he won the Pulitzer Prize for A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. Then I read his book They Whisper and enjoyed it. Then, for some reason, I lost track of him. I didn't read anything else of his until I came across this novel, Fair Warning.

The main enjoyment of this novel comes from a character study in the form of its protagonist, Amy Dickerson. She is an auctioneer for a small but prestigious Manhattan auction house. She has a natural ability to read and understand people which makes her very good at her job. She is able to see what people are willing to part with in terms of both money and objects. On the other hand, this ability interferes with her relationships both with her family and her potential lovers. While longing for the ethereal herself, she can only see people's material wants and that includes a person's desire for her. In the end, she must try to see her own desires most clearly and come to peace with them.

This is a nice little book. Butler's prose is quite engaging and the book is short enough to be read at a single sitting. Amy and her relationships do make for a fun glimpse into an upper class New York/Paris world. I was tripped up a bit at the end by Alain's neo-Naked Pictures of My Ex-Girlfriends obsession which seemed a bit of a cheap ruse in an otherwise very emotionally realistic novel. Still, it is certainly worth the time.