The Plot

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Oh, we writers are such a sad lot of self-flagellating artists. Our work is never appreciated. There is the sense that anyone can do it. There’s no money in it, it’s insanely hard to get anyone to read anything. And everything under the sun has been done.

So goes the way of Jacob ‘Finch’ Bonner, the protagonist of The Plot. For Jake once published a small and promising book that landed him on the New York Times ‘New and Noteworthy’ list tagging him with the label/curse of promising up and coming artist.

But that was a long time ago. Jake struggles to write his new novel, working as a writing instructor at a small college which has rebranded itself as a haven for other hopeful writers. And it is during this time that he runs into the arrogant young Evan Peters who brags of his ‘can’t miss’ wholly original plot, which he shares in a private session behind closed doors. Peters is the worst kind of student in that he believes there is nothing that anyone can teach him because his novel is already perfect. Jake has seen these types come and go. But Evan is different. His assurance that his novel is going to be a best seller stays with Jake even as he forgets most of his other students.

Cut to many years later, when Jake has taken a step further down the path of writing obscurity at a resort in upstate New York. He fully expected by this time that Evan Peters’ novel would be out there in the world in some form…but when he checks it out, he is shocked to realize that he died not long after the meeting in Jake’s office.

Pressured to make some money and come up with a new idea, he takes advantage of an idea once told to him in private…and he steals the plot to his next book.

The book, Called The Crib, becomes a smash hit and gains Jake his first taste of real success and the accompanying fame…which leads to a sudden rash of unwanted messages..

“YOU ARE A THIEF.”

Suddenly, Jake’s success is in jeopardy as he tries to discover the sender of the messages and whether he can withstand the threat to his livelihood, all the while hiding it from his publisher and his readers.

What results is a hell of a lot of fun. The setup is near perfect (man, writers are so annoying!) and the follow through pays off big time.

Thoroughly enjoyable, a thriller that dives deep into the insecurities of writers and asks the philosophical questions about responsibility to the story and how far one is willing to go to protect their stories.





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