I raced through Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot while on last year’s Central European rail jaunt. It’s a literary thriller about a blocked writer who uses the surefire plot a student recounts to him after he learns of the student’s death with dire consequences. I dithered about reading The Sequel, having learnt my lesson with follow-ups but decided to take the plunge. It picks up where The Plot leaves off with Anna now her late husband’s literary executor. This isn’t a sequel that stands alone well. If you like the sound of it, best read The Plot first.
She had worked for so long to separate the two circles of the Venn diagram that was her actual life.
Anna’s never had much time for writers, a precious bunch obsessed with seeing their prose between two covers on booksellers’ tables. Surely it can’t be that difficult, she thinks. Jake’s publishing team are all too eager when she tentatively suggests she might write something herself, setting up a place for her at a writers’ colony, ecstatic when she delivers The Afterword about a widow grieving the suicide of her beloved husband. Anna knows how to present herself as the modest newcomer, sensitive to readers who attend signings eager to share their own stories of loss, and offended when asked to sign copies of Crib, Jake’s bestselling novel. At one such event, Anna is handed a copy of her novel with a Post-it attached requesting the inscription ‘For Evan Parker, not forgotten’. Before long excerpts from a manuscript horribly familiar to Anna begin turning up, setting off alarm bells.
That was the thing about a private experience. You could speculate all you wanted. You could fictionalise. You could assume. And Evan had done every one of those things, repeatedly. But you couldn’t know for sure.
Korelitz’s follow-up gets off to a slow start smartly gaining pace as Anna realises her new comfortable life is under threat and takes off in pursuit of whoever is sending those excerpts. It’s all a bit improbable but enjoyably so with the help of a hefty dose of dark humour. Korelitz mercilessly satirises the publishing industry – Jake’s publishing team nakedly eager to cash in on his widow’s success, urging her to deliver her second novel, and asking why shouldn’t she sign copies of Crib, after all. Writers also come in for some stick, prepared to toady to whoever offers the prospect of publication no matter how tenuous. In a nice touch, chapters are named after sequels with a handy list at the end. That quote in my subtitle is Korelitz’s nod to the pitfalls of sequels and while I found this one entertaining, it’s not as successful as some on her list. That said, fans of The Plot are likely to enjoy it, and well done Faber for publishing it straight into paperback.
Faber & Faber London 9780571391226 352 pages Paperback (read via NetGalley)
