September 2, 2021

BLog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

Hanff Korelitz, Jean – THE PLOT

Published: 2021

Read: 8/2021

Jacob Finch Bonner is a dedicated writer and novelist. He has early success with his first novel, winning various awards, but selling relatively few copies. His subsequent books, however, fall flat. He loses ground, doesn’t get picked up by the same publishers, and ends up teaching at a low-residency MFA program. During this time he meets an arrogant asshole (Evan Parker) who boasts that he has a blockbuster plot. A plot so good that even a bad author couldn’t mess it up. To Bonner’s dismay, the student is a competent one, and when the student finally tells him the plot, Bonner has to hand it to him – it’s a plot that’s bound to succeed. Several years later, Bonner has fallen even farther from grace. He then turns to The Plot. It turns out that Parker died only months after his MFA program ended. Bonner, having only ever seen the first 12 pages of Parker’s manuscript, writes a book using Parker’s plot. Hey presto – the novel is a massive success. Book tours. Money. Interest in his next work. A new girlfriend he meets at a radio interview. Then, somebody starts emailing Bonner, calling him a thief. Bonner starts to crumble, and he eventually investigates. He finds out about Evan Parker. He finds out that Evan Parker’s story is based on what happened in his family. He finds out that Parker’s sister got pregnant, was forced to drop out and raise the baby, that she kills her daughter when the girl is off to leave for college, and then takes her place. This same sister seems to be a serial killer, there being suspicious circumstances around her parents’ and brother’s death. It turns out this woman is Bonner’s new girlfriend – now wife – and she kills him too, taking over his estate. 

I enjoyed the look into the literary world, in this book. I liked the arrogant Evan Parker. I liked the idea of a plot that’s so good it will automatically rocket a book to the tops of the charts. I don’t think an idea in itself is ever good enough to do that – I think it always is dependent on particular execution – but it’s a fun idea to entertain. It’s like The Entertainment in Infinite Jest or that Monty Python sketch about the joke that kills people because once they hear it they can never stop laughing. I saw the twist in the end coming, as I noticed that Bonner has a photo of the girl who dies but not of the mother. Why not have any idea what the mother looks like? Oh, because that would give away the fact that it’s the same person as his girlfriend. 

Good enough! Is what I think of this book. 

Rating: ★★★