The Plot ⭑⭑⭑⭑
Genre: Literary Thriller
US Publication: May 11, 2021
Print: 336 pages
Audio: 10 hours 43 minutes
Confetti Rating: 4 stars
REVIEW:
After finishing The Plot, it seems to me that author Jean Hanff Korelitz has the following:
1. A giant set of cojones. To write an actual novel about the plot of a fictional novel that’s so good it will be a guaranteed best seller, and to include that fictional novel within your actual novel? Yeah, that’s pretty ballsy.
2. Writing chops. This is a well-written *literary* thriller, where form doesn’t heed to function. Yes there’s a great plot to The Plot, but it’s framed with crafty sentences and giant walls of text. Don’t like page-long paragraphs? Too bad for you.
3. A crystal ball. This novel (and ergo the novel within it) will be a best seller. A worthy one, at that.
My thanks to the (ballsy) author and Celadon Books for the advance copy to review via NetGalley. The expected US publication date is May 11, 2021.
PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:
Hailed as breathtakingly suspenseful, Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Plot is a propulsive read about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.
Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he's teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what's left of his self-respect; he hasn't written - let alone published - anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn't need Jake's help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then. . . he hears the plot.
Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker's first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that - a story that absolutely needs to be told.
In a few short years, all of Evan Parker's predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.
As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his "sure thing" of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?