The Plot (The Book Series, #1)

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

words were occasionally used in ways that definitely implied the writer was not overly clear on their meanings.

“Oh please,” she’d responded, “anybody can publish a book. You just write a check.” It was, he had to admit, a version of anybody can be a writer that even he could get behind.

All he had ever wanted was to tell—in the best possible words, arranged in the best possible order—the stories inside him.

Writers wanting him to confirm their theories about discrimination in the publishing world—Anti-Semitism! Sexism! Racism! Ageism!—as the sole and true reason their 800-page experimental non-linear punctuation-free neo-novel had been turned down by every publisher in the country.

When Jake did, finally, surface, it wasn’t because he’d managed to achieve some perspective or make anything resembling a plan; it was because he’d finished the whiskey and the cupcakes and developed a strong suspicion that the bad new smell he’d lately become aware of was coming from inside the apartment.

but Betty and Sylvia had pretty much bludgeoned any trace of grandeur to death with folksy signs: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE … AND A CAT! and CRAZY CAT LADY lined the wall up the stairs, and visible above the parlor mantelpiece was LOVE IS LOVE).

You’re obviously who you said you are. If not I’d be out back calling the troopers. In case you thought we’re all hospitality and no common sense.”

“It’s really the back of beyond,” Jake heard himself say.