The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz, tells the story of a dark plot for a bestseller, and an even darker plot around writing it.

After a promising debut novel, an almost forgotten second novel, and no shot at publishing his third book, Jacob Finch Bonner finds himself teaching in a pay-to-play MFA program. One of his students, Evan Parker, is completely sure he’s writing a winner. Evan is the worst Guy In Your MFA, convinced that he’s writing the Great American Novel and that it’ll be a huge commercial success, and he’s not convinced that anyone could teach writing, so basically everyone around him is wasting his time. He’s got a plot idea that’s so good the writing won’t even matter, but of course he can’t tell anyone what makes it so good, and ugh, I already hate him.  Evan does tell his plot, or at least, enough of an outline with the shocking twist to Jacob, but not to the reader. We just have Jacob’s reaction to go on, and Jacob is thoroughly impressed. Ugh, even worse, insufferable Evan actually has an extremely good plot.

We readers are really far into The Plot before we get to see what that twist is, and by that time I was just dying to know. I often complain that not-gonna-tell-you is probably my least favorite way to build tension, but it works here, probably because there’s a whole secondary storyline and so much going on. I didn’t feel like I was getting heavy hints at the Big Secret and abrupt subject changes. We discover just as much of the plot as Jacob has on his mind. And I have to tell you, I was so curious about that plot. What could possibly be so stunning and still be something that bro Evan could have made up?

As Jacob falls further and further from his literature dreams, he googles and discovers that Evan died without ever completing or publishing his book. (Evan was not stabbed to death by his MFA classmates, but I wouldn’t have blamed them.) With Evan gone, there’s no one else who knows about the plot idea… and it’s such an amazing story… sure to be a hit… and Jacob writes it without copying a single word from the couple of pages he read years ago.

There’s so much tension here, as Jacob knows he’s stolen his best book, and it really is a great book. All the things Evan predicted for his own success start to come true for Jacob. I mean, I didn’t exactly want Jacob to be rewarded with a bestseller for being such a half-hearted writing teacher and plot-thief, but I also didn’t quite want him to get caught when someone else, somewhere, knows he didn’t come up with his own plot, and begins to let Jacob know in strange, unsettling ways.

You guys, there are about a hundred twists, and basically everything I noticed in the beginning of the novel and wondered about became a plot point later. How did Evan catch lightning in a bottle with that great idea? I don’t want to spoil anything, because the unfolding discovery is so tense, but basically every time I noticed a detail in the description as odd or particularly memorable, that odd thing came back later.  Such a twisty plot!

The Plot is by Jean Hanff Korelitz and will be published by Celadon Books on May 11, 2021. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Opinions are my own, as always.

This is my Review of the Month for the review collection on LovelyAudiobooks.info