The Plot, Jean Korelitz [read e books online free txt] 📗

“So wise,” said Candy.

“I’ve always thought so. And I’ve had some time now to really think deeply about what I want from my life, and how I want to live it. It’s a little embarrassing under the circumstances, but deep down I realized that what I truly want to do is write.”

“Really!” said Candy, leaning forward. “But that must be intimidating. I mean, as the widow of such a famous writer …”

“I don’t feel that way.” Anna smiled. “It’s true that Jake’s work was known all over the world, but he always insisted he wasn’t special. He used to tell me: Everyone has a unique voice and a story nobody else can tell. And anybody can be a writer.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Seldom have I been so grateful for my chosen career as I was during the spring and summer months of 2020, not just for the opportunity to work at home but for the chance to escape, on a daily basis, into another reality. I am beyond thankful for my wonderful agents at WME, Suzanne Gluck and Anna DeRoy, as well as Andrea Blatt, Tracy Fisher, and Fiona Baird, and for Deb Futter, Jamie Raab, and their extraordinary team at Celadon, including Randi Kramer, Lauren Dooley, Rachel Chou, Christine Mykityshyn, Jennifer Jackson, Jaime Noven, and Anne Twomey. This book was born in Deb’s office. Sorry for the mess.

My parents, under house arrest in New York City, devoured every word of this novel as it was written. My husband brought coffee in the morning and alcoholic beverages promptly at five. My sister and my kids cheered me on. My beloved friends have sustained me during the writing of this book, and I can’t adequately express my appreciation to them, most especially Christina Baker Kline, Jane Green, Elise Paschen, Lisa Eckstrom, Elisa Rosen, Peggy O’Brien, Deborah Michel (and her devious daughters), Janice Kaplan, Helen Eisenbach, Joyce Carol Oates, Sally Singer and Laurie Eustis. Also Leslie Kuenne, but that’s, literally, another story.

The Plot may seem a little hard on writers, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone; we’re hard on ourselves. In fact, you couldn’t hope to meet a more self-flagellating bunch of creatives anywhere. At the end of the day, though, we are the lucky ones. First, because we get to work with language, and language is thrilling. Second, because we love stories and we get to frolic in them. Begged, borrowed, adapted, embroidered … perhaps even stolen: it’s all a part of a grand conversation. “Grasp that and you have the root of the matter. To understand all is to forgive all.” (Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited)

This novel is dedicated to Laurie Eustis, with love.

About the Author

Jean Hanff Korelitz was born and raised in New York City and educated at Dartmouth College and Clare College, Cambridge. She is the author of seven novels, including The Devil and Webster, You Should Have Known (adapted as the 2020 HBO series The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland), Admission (adapted as the 2013 film of the same name, starring Tina Fey, Lily Tomlin and Paul Rudd), The White Rose, The Sabbathday River and A Jury of Her Peers. With Paul Muldoon she adapted James Joyce’s The Dead as an immersive theatrical event, The Dead 1904. She and her husband, poet Paul Muldoon, are the parents of two children and live in New York City. A new novel, The Latecomer, will be published in 2022.

Also by Jean Hanff Korelitz

The Devil and Webster

You Should Have Known

Admission

The White Rose

The Sabbathday River

A Jury of Her Peers

MIDDLE GRADE FICTION

Interference Powder

DRAMA

The Dead, 1904 (with Paul Muldoon)

POETRY

The Properties of Breath

Copyright

First published in the UK in 2021

by Faber & Faber Limited

Bloomsbury House

74–77 Great Russell Street

London WC1B 3DA

First published in the USA in 2021

by Celadon Books

a division of Macmillan Publishers

120 Broadway

New York NY 10271

This ebook edition first published in 2021

All rights reserved

Copyright © Jean Hanff Korelitz, 2021

The right of Jean Hanff Korelitz to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Cover design by Faber

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organisations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

ISBN 978–0–571–36810–5