THE PLOT has been translated into 25 languages, and published in Arabic (Jalees), Brazil (Verus), Croatia (Indigo Knjiga), Denmark (Gad), Dutch (Borgerhoff & Lamberigts), France (Le Cherche Midi), Germany (PRH), Greece (Minoas), Hungary (Gabo Kiado), Israel (Kin Books), Italy (Piemme), Japan (Hayakawa), Korea (Open Books), Latvia (Kontinents), Lithuania (Balto Leidybos Namai), Poland (Poradnia K), Portugal (Presenca), Romania (Grup), Russia (Livebook), Serbia (Vulkan), Spain (Roca), Taiwan (Spring), Turkey (Altın Kitaplar), Ukraine (Knigolove), United Kingdom (Faber & Faber)

 
 

BOOKREPORTER Talks To: Jean Hanff Korelitz

Jean Hanff Korelitz’s THE PLOT is one of the best novels I’ve ever read about writers and writing. It’s also insanely readable and terrifying. The suspense quotient is through the roof.
— Stephen King
From its first pages, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot ensnares you in a rich tangle of literary vanities, treachery and fraud. Psychologically acute and breathtakingly suspenseful, you’ll find yourself rushing towards a finale both astonishing and utterly earned.
— Megan Abbott
I won’t spoil the ending. But, as a longtime fan of Korelitz’s novels (including “You Should Have Known,” which was made into HBO’s “The Undoing”), I will say that I think “The Plot” is her gutsiest, most consequential book yet. It keeps you guessing and wondering, and also keeps you thinking: about ambition, fame and the nature of intellectual property (the analog kind). Are there a finite number of stories? Is there a statute of limitations on ownership of unused ideas? These weighty questions mingle with a love story, a mystery and a striver’s journey — three of the most satisfying flavors of fiction out there.
— The New York Times
We read books for many reasons, but sometimes we just want to get lost in a great plot — and Korelitz, author of “You Should Have Known” (recently made into the HBO series “The Undoing”), here delivers a psychological thriller so wickedly delicious it should be served with ice cream. Jake Finch Bonner’s first novel made a modest splash, but he’s now miserably teaching writing and wondering if his next book will even be published. When an obnoxious student shares his own brilliant plot idea, Jake is intrigued and envious — and, when he hears years later that the student has died without publishing his book, wonders who would even know if he lifted the idea. Turns out — oops — that somebody does. Korelitz, who’s based in New York but set a portion of the story in Seattle (watch for clever cameos from Seattle Arts & Lectures, Benaroya Hall and Elliott Bay Book Co.), writes hilariously — and no doubt accurately — about the writing program in which Jake teaches. And she expertly wrangles her book’s tricky double-barreled plot, as the novel itself and the novel-within-the-novel (whose plot is only revealed to us in slow, deliberate doses) merge and the pages start turning as if blown by a gale force. When it was over, too soon, I just wanted to start again and see how she’d done it; it’s that good.
— Seattle Times
The novelist whose book You Should Have Known became the basis for the hit HBO series, The Undoing, returns with another propulsive tale of deceit and betrayal, this time, set in the world of book publishing. Will Jake—a just-about washed up fiction writer and low-level professor—get away with literary theft and rise to stardom? And who will play him on TV?
— O: The Oprah Magazine
Only the shrewdest will anticipate the jaw-dropping final revelation...Korelitz, who demonstrated in Admission (2009) and You Should Have Known (2014) that she knows how to blend suspense with complex character studies...the story hurtles toward the creepy climax, in the best tradition of Patricia Highsmith and other chroniclers of the human psyche’s darkest depths. Gripping and thoroughly unsettling: This one will be flying off the shelves.
— Kirkus
The author of the book that the recent HBO limited series The Undoing was based on is back with another thriller. Jacob Finch Bonner is an M.F.A. instructor at a made-up college in Vermont. (It’s called Ripley College, so fans of Patricia Highsmith can already figure where Korelitz might be going.) A has-been writer himself, Jacob teaches a number of students, including Evan Parker, who brags about having what he claims to be a brilliant novel in progress. When Evan dies after leaving the M.F.A. program, Jacob steals his book’s plot and writes a bestseller from it. Soon someone who knows what’s happened comes out of the shadows, threatening to destroy Jacob’s fraudulently earned success.
— The Wall Street Journal

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Is writing an innate talent, or can it be taught?

2. Do you think Jake would have stolen the story if he knew where it came from?

3. Does anyone have the right to tell someone else’s story?

4. What constitutes plagiarism? Did Jake cross that line?

Submitted by OMG! Bookclub (Oakville, ON)

5. What role does gossip and social media play in this story?

6. Which did you enjoy more, the story within the novel or the plot itself? Submitted by Canadian Book Enablers (Kitchener, ON)

7. Who did you suspect @TalentedTom was?

8. The author includes a number of literary allusions throughout

the novel; which ones did you notice? Submitted by Tough Old Birds (St. Louis, MO)

9. Consider the triple meaning of the word “plot”—a story, a

gravesite, a secret plan. How did the author involve each of

these in the novel?

10. Discuss the conclusion. Were you surprised by the ending?

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