SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: February 8, 2022] The Plot
I tend not to read books where spoilers are a big deal. I try not to spoil things when I write these posts, but at the same time, usually I can write a lot and not give away anything major. In fact, I didn’t even know about this book until my supervisor mentioned it and made it sound really interesting.
But holy cow, this story is all about the Plot. I though the title of the book was pretty lame. And yet it is not. It works on the main level but also on a secondary level. It’s a really great title.
So here’s what I can say as set up without giving too much away.
The story is about Jacob Finch Bonner. A few years ago he had a debut novel that was quite well received. He was a new and notable author and although his book didn’t sell a ton, he was seen as a guy with promise. But he couldn’t think of anything good for a second book. So his publisher (not the big publisher from the first book, a smaller one) gathered a bunch of short stories together and tried to say that the book was a series of related short stories (even that stretched the truth). He wrote a third story that was even worse–nobody wanted that one.
When he was riding high, he had been offered a job teaching at Ripley College. Teaching a summer intensive writing course that was more like camp for rich would-be writers. He sorta cared that first year yet each subsequent year has been full of diminishing returns.
Korelitz has a lot of fun in these early chapters, name-dropping appropriate authors (and disastrous authors) as well as poking fun at the wannabe authors that take his class.
His workshop contained not one but two women who cited Elizabeth Gilbert as their inspiration, another who hoped to write a series of mysteries organized around “numerological principles,” a man who’d already had six-hundred pages of a novel based on his own life (he was only up to his adolescence) and a gentleman from Montana who seemed to be writing a new version of Les Miserables albeit with Victor Hugo’s “mistakes” corrected.
And then there was Evan Parker. Parker was an obnoxious, cocky, awful person. He was so sure that he novel was going to be a huge hit (with an A-list filmmaker attached soon enough), that he seriously wondered if he should go by Parker Evan to avoid his soon-to-be adoring fans. He said Jake that his plot was so good that there was no way a writer could mess it up.
He also didn’t think he needed any help in writing this book. So why was he here? Pretty much only to make connections and to see what Jake could do for him (most of the writers hoped for this last art as well).
Parker was so cocky, that he didn’t even share his work with anyone. He wouldn’t talk about it or pass it around. He did show Jake a few pages (mandatory) and Jake thought the character development was good and the writing was better than average. But Parker wasn’t willing to tell hi about this plot that was a sure thing.
And then, before the week was over, Jake was at his wits end with this guy and Parker agreed to tell him his amazing plot. And Jake had to agree that it was pretty amazing.
I assumed that we’d never see the plot–it’s risky for a writer to rave so much about a plot and then show it. But she does reveal it in pieces.
And that’s pretty much all I can say without giving away details. Admittedly, the book jacket gives away a lot more than I am willing to, because I wish I hadn’t even known that much going into the book.
Things I can say are that there are very funny.
There’s a part of the book set in the Pacific Northwest with a horrible radio DJ named Randy Johnson. I assumed that the baseball player had become a radio personality, but I don’t believe that’s the case. And Johnson is made out to be a horrific lech. But the radio show is very funny.
I also really enjoyed the character of Johnson’s director. She is a young woman named Anna whose hair turned prematurely gray after she suffered a tragedy. She’s a fascinating character and I enjoyed watching her develop through the story.
The story also travels to Georgia and I had to wonder if Korelitz had it in for people there because there is not a single person there who is in an y way likable. They all have horrible personalities and are questionable.
The story is obviously a mystery and it twists in different ways. So much so that I thought I had something figured out a little more than half way through, but I then convinced myself I was wrong about it. I rather enjoyed that about the book.
There’s so much more I want to say but I won’t.
Except to say that I loved the beginning of the book. Then I got really annoyed at it. But when it came to the end I couldn’t put it down. I stayed up till like 1:30 AM to finish it.
So yes, I think that’s the mark of a good book.
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