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The Plot
Group Read - The Plot
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Group Read - The Plot chapters 8-17 Spoilers Welcome
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Chapter 8-9Three years later. Jake has published the bestseller CRIB based on Palmer’s story idea. The book is wildly successful and Jake is thrust into the limelight. He is on a national book tour in Seattle, speaking to an audience of 2500. He still can’t believe it. A movie is in development to be directed by Steven Spielberg. But he lives in fear that his secret will be discovered and he’ll join the ranks of other disgraced authors.
His agent/representative Otis arranges a last minute radio interview for the next morning right before he is to leave town The producer, Anne, is a fan, an Jakes feels a spark of interest. He hasn’t dated in a while, a few women going back to Alice, his colleague at Ripley. It ended when she left to go to Hopkins where she is now tenured. The radio host is a jerk who hasn’t read Jake’s book, asks inane questions, and quickly loses interest. He asks Jake about the plot: it’s about a mother and the daughter she had too young, and their conflict. After the interview Anne asks Jake out for coffee and he accepts. She tells him her backstory and they talk about books and writing. In the cab to the airport ake checks his email to find the first of many to come: “You are a thief.”
Chapter 10
The story switches to The Plot, pages 3 through 4. The main character Samantha realizes she is pregnant when she throws up on her desk at school. She’s 15 and not an idiot -- she knew how babies were made. A true bastard has clearly lied to her -- more than once she thinks. Her home life is nothing special -- no abuse -- but her parents seem clueless. There have been trips to NY, but her parents don’t know what to make of it. But what she does have is a future. Samantha’s father is a janitor at the local college and her mother is a housekeeper. The benefit of her dad’s job includes very generous subsidies for tuition and expenses, and consideration to children of the staff. Samantha sees all that vanish with her newfound state. She thinks “I’m obviously not going to do ‘nothing.’”
To be continued....
Chapter 11Jake attends meetings in San Francisco and LA that go well, but when he returns to NY his anxiety returns. He is getting approached by all sorts of fans, former acquaintances, etc., wanting something from him. And here comes the second message from his tormentor (whose email address is “TalentedTom@gmail.com.” “You are a thief. We both know it.” Jake dwells on the name... Talented Tom refers to the Patricia Highsmith series; Tom is a murderer and his last name is.... Ripley. Jake figures Tom is someone who knew both Jake and Palmer at Ripley. Jake doesn’t respond because he is afraid of what is coming next. Instead he goes into a funk and disappears into a drinking phase for a few days. When he surfaces there are hundreds of emails awaiting him, including from fans, his agent wondering about the next book (which Jake is getting nowhere on... and more messages from Tom. “I know you stole your novel and I know who you stole it from. He picks up the apartment and cleans himself up. He calls Anne daily, getting to know her, and finishes the first draft of his new novel.
He gets another message: “What will Oprah say when she finds out about you? At least James Frey had the decency to steal from himself.”
Chapter 12
“I’m on Twitter now. Thought you’d like to know.” @Talented Tom.
Jake goes back to Evan’s obituary page. There are just a few comments and none from people very close, including a student named Martin from Ripley. Jake finds him on the old roster he still has on his laptop. He does some more searching online and finds an alumni page of posts. Going back in time he finds a post from Martin alerting the group to Evan’s demise. He died of an overdose, and apparently owned a tavern.
Jake emails Martin and asks to speak by phone. Martin calls back right away, delighted to be talking with a famous writer. After some small talk Jake asks about Evan but despite the fact that Martin and Evan hung out from time to time he doesn’t learn much mor than he had gotten from the obit. Martin doesn’t think Evan did anything with this story given Evan’s drug problems. He had seen a few pages and didn’t think much of them. (Carol’s note: why didn’t he recognize the plot in CRIB, which I assume he’d read although he didn’t say.)
CRIB--pages 23-25
Samantha has told her parents and they are understandably not pleased. She refuses to say who the father is -- it’s her mother’s boss at the College Inn. Samantha didn’t notice his gradual attentiveness until she did. She made a calculation to sleep with him; he was smart, good-looking, everyone around her was having sex and she felt left out, he had 3 sons so clearly knew what he was doing, he had reasons to keep his mouth shut. Of course, he had lied when he said he’d had a vasectomy. She had no intention of telling him. He didn’t deserve to know.
Chapters 13 and 14
Jake’s editor Melinda called for a progress report on his new book. Anne calls with an idea about coming to NYC but wants to make sure she’s not being presumptuous. Jake encourages her to come.
She arrives. They wander the streets of NY and return to his apartment. They barely leave for the next 4 days. One her final night there she says she likes NYC and Jake asks if she’d mind moving to NY. Anne reveals more of her past. Her parents died when she was young. An aunt came to take care of her and her sister but she wasn’t very good at it. Anne stopped going to school and began to drift. When her teacher worked out what was going on she asked Anna to come live with her. Anne tried to get her sister to come as well but she refused to leave their aunt. Eventually the two dropped off the grid and Anne lost track of them. She is active on Facebook and Instagram in the hope that one day she’ll hear from them. She tells Jake “you can’t imagine what it’s like to be waiting for a message that will upend your life.” Anne expresses doubts about how she’s lived her life so far. Jake reassures her and tells her she doesn’t owe anyone anything. “You deserve every level of happiness that is coming to you.” “I complete agree” she says.
CRIB -- pp 36-38
Samantha showed signs of high blood pressure and had to drop out of school to go on bed rest. She’s counting the days until she can have the baby, give it up for adoption, and return for her final year in HS. But no, her parents insist she keep it. That’s what God wants.
Chapter 15
In mid-December the tweets begin. Jacob Bonner is not the author of CRIB. There were no followers, so no impact.
Anne is becoming a fixture in his life. She is interesting and interested. He is getting out more. His friends like her. His parents like her. His father asks what his intentions are. Jake worries she’ll find out the truth about CRIB. The tweeter continues to tweet but they don’t gather seam and Anne hasn’t seen anything so far.
Chapter 16
A FB page has surfaced from Talented Tom. The single post -- that Jake is not the author of CRIB -- gets one response, and then more. The publishing company wants to speak with him.
Jake meets with the publishing team. The publisher’s attorney has gathered data on Talented Tom’s activity. This is not unusual -- lots of famous authors have been accused of plagiarism. They discuss strategy -- post a statement on Tom’s FB page, ask the web service to divulge their identity (not likely), etc. Ignoring it is not an option, the aren’t worried. Jake however....
CRIB pp 43-44
Samantha is in labor. Her parents take her to the hospital but won’t go in with her. The staff are unsympathetic -- they won’t give her pain medication. She is wracked with pain and passes out. When she awakes her little girl is in a crib next to her bed.
Chapter 17
The lawyers posts a “cease and desist”” order on the FB page. There is silence for a few days after which Talented Tom posts a response that he also sends to book sites frequented by readers and journalists to the effect that Jake is not the rightful owner of the story.
Jake receives lots of sympathetic responses from colleagues and friends, even Martin who says the story was posted to the Ripley FB page. He asks if Jake has any idea who is behind this. “I was thinking maybe you” Jake thinks to himself.
CRIB pp 71-73
Two years later Samantha’s father drops dead of a heart attack. Her mother complains of a long-term affair he was having. She spends less time at home, travelling with her church group. Samantha is left to raise a child who grows into a surly obstinate toddler. Samantha’s classmates pass her by and scatter.
Great summaries Carol! Thanks for doing them. What an interesting segment. I am intrigued by the excerpts from the novel Crib. Interspersing them this way in the midst of Jake's story adds to the tension. I was of a similar mind to the idea raised in the legal conference with the publisher where it was pointed out that Jake did the actual work and wrote and published the story, so is it really stealing? Not saying it is or isn't; it is a grey area and especially since Jake saw online his student Evan was dead and it had been a while before he started the book. But complicating things, we do have the fact that Evan was his student, even for just a short time, so that adds the possibility of it leaning towards Jake's theft because of implied trust.
What did you think?
Yes, this has troubled me all along. It's dishonest for sure; Jake did not come up with idea and perhaps would not have come up with the idea but for Jake's 8 page plot summary, so what would have been the ethical thing to do? Acknowledge it at the outset? ("based on an idea shared with me by ----') Jake would take a hit in reputation if he disclosed at this point, but an 8 page summary is not a book, so no question that Jake gets full credit for developing it into a book, and a successful one at that.But of course, we would not have a novel if Jake admitted to it now. It's like other points where in a novel one says "if only the hero would do X his problems would go away or be lessened.
I'm not sure the fact of Jake being his student factors in at all. It's not like he told Jake it was a crap idea and would never get anywhere, thus discouraging Jake from writing it, after which he then wrote the book himself. Jake had time to develop it into a book and he didn't. Although it now occurs to me that I don't think we ever heard what if anything Jake said to Evan after he read the pages of his.
I too am intrigued by the snippets of CRIB inserted into the narrative. At first I wondered if we were ever going to hear what this plot was with the astounding plot twist one didn't see coming. Leaving it undisclosed would have been an interesting choice. Disclosing it means that eventually we will have enough information to decide for ourselves if it was the best plot idea we've ever encountered, or however Jake characterized it when he first read the pages.
Spoilers Welcome on this topic. If the first to post, please briefly summarize to guide the discussion. Thanks!