THE PLOT by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Jake Bonner is a writer whose first novel was reasonably successful but whose subsequent efforts have been mediocre at best.  After a student named Evan Parker, who happens to be a decent writer, recounts to Jake the dynamite plot of a novel he plans to write, Jake expects to see that novel in print within a few years.  However, for some reason it has never come to fruition, and Jake discovers that Evan died shortly after completing Jake’s workshop.  Jake struggles to rationalize why he ultimately expands his student’s plot into a novel of his own:  it’s a story that is too good to go to waste.  The ensuing recognition of Jake’s novel comes with not only a fair amount of guilt but also a new girlfriend and some creepy missives from someone who apparently knows that his book’s storyline is not original.  One could argue that it’s always a bad idea to do something that will cause you to be constantly looking over your shoulder to see if someone is coming after you.  Jake’s dilemma, as he dodges questions about how he got the idea for his novel’s plot and pretends to be unfazed by the ever more threatening notes from someone calling themselves TalentedTom—clearly a reference to Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley about a man who covets the life of another man and ultimately takes it over.  Jake may be enjoying the accolades that rightfully should have belonged to Evan Parker, but there is more to the Ripley theme than just stealing the plot of another man’s novel.  Chapters of Jake’s blockbuster novel are interspersed throughout this book, so that we really have two novels here that converge.  The story of Jake’s inner turmoil and quest to uncover the identity of his nemesis is undeniably a page-turner—even more so than the stolen plot of his best-selling thriller.