Good Reads / Community Library Notes
The Plot
Jean Hanff Korelitz
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Plot
Jean Hanff Korelitz
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz is the story of Jacob Finch Bonner, teacher of fiction writing at a Vermont college, on his way now to the Ripley Symposium with his sack of winter clothes. He also has his ancient computer on which to write his non-existent novel. Students’ samples of their writing are in his old leather satchel. His third and fourth novels had been rejected immediately without even a hand-written note. A poet, Alice, who is also at the symposium, greets Jake and praises his work which she has read and liked. He’s flattered. A young student who has grabbed a beer from Jake the night before is in his class and makes himself obnoxious. He’s talking loudly and sneering at the hand-outs. He lets everyone know he doesn’t care what anyone says about his writing, he’s certain he has a super plot and success will easily be his.
Jake reads Evan Parker’s story three times and summarizes it for the reader. It’s about a mother and daughter who hate one another; the tension is extreme. Jake thinks so what as he does about many stories. Evan Parker wants an agent and a personal recommendation. Jake says he can’t tell from an excerpt if it’s good. Parker says it’ll be made into a movie with an important director. Parker says there’s no way it can fail. Jake realizes, he knows it’s going to be sensational success. It’ll be on everyone’s coffee table.
Two years later Jake is re-hired to teach at Ripley College, not earning enough to pay New York rents. As on-line editor he listens to complaints about the food and the lack of entertainment. He feels like a desk clerk at the Adlons Creative Writing seminar and muses how TS Eliot once said good writers borrow ideas, great writers steal them. When he looks up Evan Parker on Google, he sees his obituary and an amazing idea comes to him.
Jake did not take one word from Parker’s story. He knows there are a million ideas waiting to be made into a novel, but he’s terrified someone will ask where he got this idea. Now with this new novel, he’s had public readings and signed copies by the dozens or hundreds. This was his dream. His book is called “Crib” and Spielberg is directing the movie. Jake is asked to summarize the plot for the radio audience by the host. On his way out for a coffee with Anna the moderator, he gets a text that reads “You are a thief.” Author Korelitz lets us read a few pages of the novel Crib and we learn the protagonist Semantha age fifteen, is pregnant. The person who wrote this, the “talented Tom @ Gmail” was not on Facebook or Twitter, but only on Jake’s website, a private website. Jake knows there are dozens of stories every day in the news waiting to be written about, and no one thinks it’s stealing.
Anna comes to New York and loves the city and loves Jake. She cooks for him, goes out with him to the play “Hamilton” and to his book tours. She spends time with his parents and he ends up liking them too. But Jake is constantly afraid Anna will find out about Talented Tom. Jake is called to a meeting with his editor, his publicist and an attorney. The editor says not to worry about this; many top authors have been accused of stealing. His staff says they’ll take care of it. They’ll sue the guy and get the posts removed.
Jake reads Evan Parker’s story three times and summarizes it for the reader. It’s about a mother and daughter who hate one another; the tension is extreme. Jake thinks so what as he does about many stories. Evan Parker wants an agent and a personal recommendation. Jake says he can’t tell from an excerpt if it’s good. Parker says it’ll be made into a movie with an important director. Parker says there’s no way it can fail. Jake realizes, he knows it’s going to be sensational success. It’ll be on everyone’s coffee table.
Two years later Jake is re-hired to teach at Ripley College, not earning enough to pay New York rents. As on-line editor he listens to complaints about the food and the lack of entertainment. He feels like a desk clerk at the Adlons Creative Writing seminar and muses how TS Eliot once said good writers borrow ideas, great writers steal them. When he looks up Evan Parker on Google, he sees his obituary and an amazing idea comes to him.
Jake did not take one word from Parker’s story. He knows there are a million ideas waiting to be made into a novel, but he’s terrified someone will ask where he got this idea. Now with this new novel, he’s had public readings and signed copies by the dozens or hundreds. This was his dream. His book is called “Crib” and Spielberg is directing the movie. Jake is asked to summarize the plot for the radio audience by the host. On his way out for a coffee with Anna the moderator, he gets a text that reads “You are a thief.” Author Korelitz lets us read a few pages of the novel Crib and we learn the protagonist Semantha age fifteen, is pregnant. The person who wrote this, the “talented Tom @ Gmail” was not on Facebook or Twitter, but only on Jake’s website, a private website. Jake knows there are dozens of stories every day in the news waiting to be written about, and no one thinks it’s stealing.
Anna comes to New York and loves the city and loves Jake. She cooks for him, goes out with him to the play “Hamilton” and to his book tours. She spends time with his parents and he ends up liking them too. But Jake is constantly afraid Anna will find out about Talented Tom. Jake is called to a meeting with his editor, his publicist and an attorney. The editor says not to worry about this; many top authors have been accused of stealing. His staff says they’ll take care of it. They’ll sue the guy and get the posts removed.