Review: The Plot (by Jean Hanff Korelitz)

My Rating:  4.5 stars

Two years ago, I had read Jean Hanff Korelitz's previous novel You Should Have Known (which is now famously known as the book that the HBO series "The Undoing" was adapted from) and while I liked the story overall, I remember how tedious of a read it was for me, mostly because the story meandered quite a bit and went off on various different tangents that didn't seem to have a whole lot to do with the plot.  And the book was long (400+ pages) — which normally wouldn't matter, except that the story was written in such a convoluted way that, by the time I got to the end, I was just glad it was over.

Given the above experience, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I went into Korelitz's newest book The Plot with a bit of trepidation, despite the fact that, as soon as I had read the book's premise, I had immediately wanted to read it.  My concerns didn't go away even after starting the book, as the story progressed really slowly for the first 50 pages or so — not only that, I also started noticing some of the long, meandering, overly-descriptive passages that had irked me in her previous book. But I stuck with it and am so glad I did, as this ended up being such a wonderful read! 

The story centers around a writer named Jacob Finch Bonner, a once successful author of a bestseller who hit a snag with his second book and is now struggling to move his career forward. While teaching at a low residency MFA program, Jake encounters a student, Evan Parker, who shares with him the plot of a story he plans on writing that he believes will be "a sure thing." Several years later, as Jake still struggles with his writing and has just about given up all hopes of reviving his career, he inadvertently finds out that Evan Parker has died, supposedly without having finished the "sure thing" novel he had bragged about during the MFA session.  At this point, Jake does what he feels any self-respecting writer would do — he takes the plot that Evan had told him about and turns it into a widely-read, bestselling novel.  Jake instantly becomes famous and also wealthy beyond measure.  One day, as he is riding the highs of success in both his personal and professional lives, he receives a mysterious message that contains four terrifying words: "You are a thief."   But it doesn't stop there — as Jake receives more and more threatening messages, to the point that he can't ignore them anymore, he sets off on a race against time to find out who his harasser is in the hopes of confronting them before they expose him.

As I mentioned earlier, I initially didn't have very high expectations going into this book (despite all the hype it has gotten so far) because I thought it would be a convoluted, drawn-out story that would take me longer than preferred to read.  But this book turned out to be opposite of what I was expecting — not only was it a quick read for me (I finished it in 2 sittings, with majority of the book completed in the second sitting because I just couldn't bring myself to put it down), the story was also tightly-plotted and absolutely brilliantly written.  Of course, there were still moments throughout the story where certain passages veered into the "overly-descriptive" category, but not to the extent as her previous book, in my opinion.  Having said this, in researching the author and her other works, I've come to realize that this is actually her distinctive writing style, which is good to know.  

In addition to a cleverly-crafted story however, one of the things that makes this book stand out is the way the characters are rendered, especially the main character Jake.  As a character, Jake is entirely fictional, however the way his struggles as a writer and the angst he goes through all came across so realistically, it really made the character come alive for me — to the point that I found it difficult to figure where I stood in terms of what he did.  Here, Korelitz did a masterful job weaving in recent "discussions" about certain aspects of the publishing industry and literary community that have been concerns over the years: issues such as appropriation versus inspiration, who should get to tell what story, the writing process and the trials and tribulations of being a writer, and most interesting of all, an inside glimpse into the publishing world and the role of the writer in that world. 

Another unique aspect of this book is the way Korelitz utilizes the "story within a story" method to tell Jake's story by incorporating excerpts from his book (the one with the "stolen" plot) interspersed throughout the story, culminating in a fantastic coming together of the plot to create a "fiction vs reality" twist in the end.  I don't want to say too much so as not to give away the ending, but I will say that this was one of the most propulsive, surprising endings that I've read in awhile.

Lastly, I just wanted to comment on why I ended up rating this one 4.5 stars rather than the full 5 stars.  The main reason for this is because I actually was able to figure out aspects of the ending early on, which made the "big reveal" (specifically as it pertained to the person sending the messages to Jake) less impactful — though with that said, the last couple scenes were definitely unexpected and very well-done.

This literary thriller is definitely a "must-read" in my book!  It's clever and creative and even though I did figure out parts of it early on, I still found much of the plot to be unpredictable in terms of the direction things ended up going.  Already, this book is getting a lot of buzz, and deservedly so, in my opinion!  And I wouldn't be surprised if this one also gets optioned for a movie or TV series at some point — I would definitely be interested in watching if that were to be the case!

Received ARC from Celadon Books via NetGalley