The Plot: A Novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz

2021 MacMillan

My niece recommended Jean Hanff Korelitz’s latest work, The Plot: A Novel. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one onto the book, as I ended up waiting months to inch up the list of library holds. In the end, however, it was worth the wait.

Korelitz, The Plot’s author, was not a writer I had previously encountered, although when reading her bio. I instantly recognized her Irish poet husband, Paul Muldoon, whose work has long appeared in The New Yorker. In addition to The Plot, Korelitz has six other novels to her name, along with a middle grade fiction book, a play written with Muldoon, and a book of poetry.

Good writers borrow, great writers steal. — T.S. Eliot (but possibly stolen from Oscar Wilde) is the epigraph of The Plot. The story centers around Jason Finch Bonner, a self-described “once promising author of a New & Noteworthy novel.” By the time we encounter Bonner he is feeling washed up. Although he has a contract for a second novel and his agent and editor are both eager for it, he is feeling stuck. Rather than making progress on his book, he instead finds himself teaching at a third-rate, low-residency MFA program where he encounters Ethan Parker, one of the book’s primary antagonists.

Ethan Parker is a sneering and arrogant young writer with no respect for his teacher or anyone else. Although Parker lacks manners and common decency, his teacher, Bonner, agrees that what Parker does have is a surefire plot idea for a novel. The idea, with its unexpected twists, does not fall on deaf ears; the rest of the book revolves around what becomes of it.

Once underway, The Plot becomes a complete page-turner with palpable mounting tension. In a case of art imitating art, like the novel at its subject, The Plot has a completely unforeseen twist. That alone is worth the read.

To be sure, The Plot is a dark story, the idea of which might seem repugnant to some who feel: Isn’t real life already dark enough? Does more darkness really edify us?

In this case, I vote “yes,” but with a caveat.

Aspiring writers: The novel is dark in part because it centers around a novelist’s inertia, which for some might be a little too close for comfort. Yet even those crippled with writers block should soldier on through this read, because the surprise ending is like being doused by a bucket of ice water, shocking, but somehow refreshing, too. For in the end, who among us can’t relish an occasional brush with fictional evil?

If you can stomach the story’s initial cynicism and its dark turns, you will no doubt exit The Plot feeling more alert and perhaps more alive, which is more than I can say for some characters.