Author Jean Hanff Korelitz comes to the Women of WHC Literary Club via Zoom on Tuesday, November 14 at 3:00 pm to discuss her newest novel, The Plot, which arrives on the heels of her best­selling book, You Should Have Known (recently adapted on HBO as The Undoing starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant). The Plot is an enticingly smart, propulsive literary thriller about a story too good not to steal, the fame-hungry writer who steals it, and the vindictive reader who uncovers the truth.

Jacob “Jake” Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect. Jake hasn’t written—let alone published—anything decent in years. Then, Evan Parker, Jake’s most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need the teacher’s help because the plot of the book he is writing is a sure thing. Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism … until he hears the plot.

Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first novel, which never comes. When Jake discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, he does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that—a story that absolutely needs to be told.

In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised, and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an email arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: “You are a thief,” it says.

As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student; what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his “sure thing” of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?

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About the Author:

Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of seven novels, including The Plot (a New York Times Bestseller and featured on The Tonight Show as the Fallon Summer Reads 2021 pick), You Should Have Known, and Admission (the basis for the 2013 film starring Tina Fey). A new novel, The Latecomer, will be published in May 2022.

Click here to purchase this book through WHC’s Mitzvah Mall.

Presented in partnership with the Jewish Book Council.