
The Plot
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $26.67
-
Narrated by:
-
Kirby Heyborne
-
Written by:
-
Jean Hanff Korelitz
About this listen
"I think Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is one of the best novels I’ve ever read about writers and writing. It’s also insanely readable and terrifying. The suspense quotient is through the roof...It’s remarkable." (Stephen King)
Hailed as "breathtakingly suspenseful", Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is a propulsive audiobook about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.
Jacob 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; he hasn’t written—let alone published—anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then...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: But it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake 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 his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and 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?
A Macmillan Audio production from Celadon Books
"Narrator Kirby Heyborne maintains the brisk pace and firm tension of what promises to be one of the summer's most talked about suspense novels." (AudioFile Magazine)
©2021 Jean Hanff Korelitz (P)2021 Macmillan AudioWhat the critics say
Amazon.com Best Books of the Year, 2021: Long-listed
New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2021: Long-listed
Washington Post Best Books of the Year, 2021: Long-listed
Good book, difficult narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great Plot
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Don’t listen to negative reviews
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Keeps you wanting to listen
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
However, unfortunately I really didn’t enjoy listening to the narrator. (I even ended up borrowing the book from the library so I could take breaks from the audiobook). It wasn’t as bad at a faster speed though.
I’ll be checking out the sequel.
Good read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The ending in particular seemed interminable.
The entire premise is absurd. The initial plot point, revealed in the Amazon intro, of a fading writer stealing one of his student’s ideas for a novel, would only have created suspense if the student had actually produced a finished book. You can't copyright an idea. The protagonist wrote the entire best-selling book himself and therefore had no reason to fear blackmail or exposure.
I don’t fault the narrator as much as others do because I feel he had to cope with grandiose and melodramatic writing, impossible to present convincingly.
The book might have been salvaged by cutting about a third of it, dumping several of the unnecessary, unbearably boring subplots, and tightening up the dialogue. Ultimately though, it still wouldn't be worth it.
Incredibly Boring
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Most boring book I’ve ever listened to
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Probably would have been great...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.