In 2021, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel “The Plot” earned exactly the kind of acclaim the characters in her book — aspiring writers — yearned for: It became a best seller, was hailed as “insanely readable” by Stephen King and is being adapted into a limited series starring Mahershala Ali.
Now Korelitz has given “The Plot” a sequel, called just that: “The Sequel.” Cleverly meta, the title fits the sardonic mood that infuses the two books.
Technically, “The Sequel” could be read as a stand-alone, but it’s best enjoyed after its predecessor. “The Plot,” Korelitz’s seventh novel, revolved around Jacob Finch Bonner, a novelist teaching at a low-residency (and low-prestige) M.F.A. program in Vermont. There, Jacob encountered an arrogant student who was certain he’d come up with the perfect plot for a novel.
After the student’s sudden death, Jacob wrote a book using that very plot. He found considerable success: two million copies in print, an Oprah’s Book Club pick, an adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg. He did his best to enjoy it all — until anonymous messages started calling out his theft.
In “The Sequel,” Jacob is no more. Korelitz shifts her focus to his widow, Anna. Comfortably ensconced in New York City, Anna has written a best seller of her own. She’s the one giving interviews, jetting to book festivals, meeting passionate fans and basking in praise from her agent and editor. Then she spies a Post-it in a book left to be signed that promises to upend her life.
Anna embarks on a no-holds-barred cleanup mission, determined to find out who’s behind the threats that follow, and put an end to them.
It’s a thrill to follow her on this dark quest. Her mind is twisted but clear; her opinions uncompromising. And through her Korelitz dispenses another dose of biting morsels that satirize contemporary literary life.
We watch Anna deceive a New York Times journalist tasked with profiling her, serving up a “carefully curated pastiche” of her writing process (pine incense, Constant Comment tea, her late husband’s favorite chair). Greeting fans is “a necessary evil,” and she’ll do anything to avoid dinner with the fawning publishing rep who accompanies her, yearning instead for a room-service burger and a whiskey sour. There are plenty of Easter eggs and fun tidbits: Pay attention, for example, to the chapter titles.
Fiercest of all is the scorn Anna reserves for her fellow writers, particularly those who can’t stop complaining about the purportedly hard path they’ve chosen: “The way they went on, those writers, so incessantly, so dramatically, they might have been going down the mines on all fours with a plastic spoon clenched between their teeth to loosen the diamonds, or wading in raw sewage to find the leak in the septic line, or running into burning buildings with 45 pounds of equipment on their backs.”
Sequels are notoriously tricky. Even the characters in “The Sequel” acknowledge it. “They’re never as good as the first book, are they?” Anna muses over lunch with her agent (whose experience has taught her to remain surprised when “any of my clients turns in an actual manuscript”).
Well, this one is.
By shifting the focus to Anna, Korelitz gives the novel what many sequels lack: a sense of newness. While the story grows more intricate, she remains in control. Her plot — ha! — is propulsive, her prose precise.
Ambitious use of the book within the book helps, too. We get to read captivating excerpts from a novel that Anna thought had been destroyed for good. These chapters not only offer new insight into her character; her reactions to the reading material also shape the story itself. In “The Sequel,” as in “The Plot,” writing is a profoundly consequential act. Characters might be creating fiction, but their words have the power to change, and possibly destroy, lives.
That it’s Anna — blithe about books and not nearly as driven as her husband — who tastes literary acclaim is one of this novel’s delicious ironies.
“She was the first to say that she lacked that vocation,” Korelitz writes. “She might even admit that she had never had a vocation of any kind, since the only thing she had consistently longed for, since childhood, was to simply be left alone, and she was only now, on the cusp of 40 (give or take) and cushioned by her late husband’s literary estate, within striking distance of doing just that.”
It takes skill to make a character interesting when her dearest ambition is to live unbothered. Yes, it’s a relatable goal, but it doesn’t automatically lend itself to a gripping read. Here, it’s fascinating to spend time inside Anna’s head. Her determination knows few bounds. The story Korelitz has crafted means that we root for her, and fear her, in equal measure.
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