Pages: 282
Published: 11th May 2021
Genre: Contemporary Thriller
Content warnings: Child death, drug references
I read this book with my friend Gem – our ninth buddy read in total! We were both looking forward to this one, but sadly it did not deliver in the way we hoped, as you will find out in my review.
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 e-mail 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.
This is a book which fails to live up to its vast potential and descends into a tale of frustration. It gives us the most enticing of concepts and makes some bold claims that lead to elevated expectations, but those are sadly not fulfilled as it instead delivers something far-fetched and lacking any real subtlety, with the execution leaving plenty to be desired.
Although it is billed as a thriller, the sense of building tension and underlying menace you might associate with the genre is largely absent. There is an addictive quality to the story as it often feels like there is a twist just around the corner that will spark it into life and reveal an extra dimension to the characters, only it never arrives and so we are left with something relatively devoid of impact.
Author Jacob Bonner had modest success with his first novel, but is now teaching a creative writing course for adults at Ripley College. While he is there, he encounters an arrogant student called Evan Parker, who states that he does not need to learn how to write, as he already has an idea for an ‘unbelievable, groundbreaking, genre-defining’ plot which will give him a guaranteed bestseller and have the most illustrious film directors queuing up to adapt it.
Irked by Evan’s attitude, when Jacob reads an excerpt of his proposal – entitled Crib – and hears the plot outline, he is forced to begrudgingly admit that it is indeed destined to be a book that will capture everyone’s imagination and achieve global success. Three years later, however, Crib still has not been published and Jacob learns that Evan has since died of a drug overdose.
Reluctant to see such a good plot go to waste and at the same time desperate to be recognised as an acclaimed author, Jacob decides to take Evan’s plot idea and publish the story himself. When he does, it has all the success that was promised and he becomes a household name, with a Steven Spielberg led film adaptation in the pipeline. He seems to have everything he wanted, but then he receives an anonymous message saying he stole the idea for Crib, which causes anxiety and guilt to creep in.
The concept really does sound tantalising and at the start it felt exciting to find out where the story would lead, but in the end it felt rather weak and contrived. Even while Jacob is receiving the inflammatory messages, they do not feel very threatening and his extremely fearful reaction to them is never properly justified. A lot of the events that take place later on come as a result of his paranoia and much of it felt either irrelevant or eyeroll-inducing.
That section of the book where Jacob is looking to find out information about Evan Parker and his family sees the pacing really suffer, and although some of it is entertaining to read, it does not add anything of great value to the plot. In all honesty, the plotting is quite heavy handed throughout, nowhere more so than for the revelation at the end, which is made incredibly obvious and easy to predict.
In terms of themes, it is quite thought-provoking and provides a lot for the reader to get stuck into. There is the interesting ethical question of whether Jacob had the right to take a dead person’s idea and publish it as his own novel, and also who should own the story of someone’s life. Along with insightful passages about the life of a writer and what it entails, this was arguably where it impressed the most.
Perhaps the biggest issue with this book is that it makes big statements and sets itself up to fail by suggesting the plot of Crib is so revolutionary. As a reader, when you see such such words as ‘unbelievable’ and ‘groundbreaking’, you expect to be truly mesmerised by what is to come. Yet while the plot is shocking in some way, it does not appear quite as original as the author makes it out to be, nor is it utilised very well as a storytelling device.
The story is written in the third person with the focus entirely on Jacob, along with various short excerpts of Crib in between certain chapters. As protagonists go, Jacob is slightly on the meek side as he displays little resolve and his first thought is always self-preservation, making him quite frustrating in a way. Then again, his perspective is captured well as the author enables us to understand how his mind works, so he is actually an interesting character.
It felt like the addition of passages from Crib would add something extra to this book and reinforce why it supposedly had such a remarkable plot. Unfortunately, in reality these sections – with maybe the odd exception – turned out to be as dull as ditchwater. The majority of it is tedious rambling; just a massive info-dump which makes it feel like the polar opposite of a would-be bestseller.
The character of Anna is not especially well fleshed out and she ends up existing merely as a plot device, with the question of a possible ulterior motive constantly hanging over her. Some of the side cast are well developed though, such as the lawyers Jacob consults with and the married couple he encounters while searching for answers. Evan Parker only appears at the beginning, but you are left in little doubt as to his self-importance.
There is a slightly eerie feel to the setting of Rutland, which has some unsettling vibes when Jacob visits during the course of his curious fact-finding mission. The Parkers’ old house certainly does have the ghost of the past hanging over it, just like the later setting in Georgia, as we see an effective juxtaposition with New York City, where much of the story takes place.
If you take the excerpts from Crib out of it, the writing is generally good, making it even more regrettable that the execution of the plot falls short. The style is fairly conversational and has a useful ability to make you not want to put the book down, even during the moments where you are having to suspend your disbelief. This did not, however, make up for the unsatisfactory pacing and inexplicable dearth of suspense.
Overall, this is the archetypal bookish scenario of something that sounds too good to be true and turning out to be just that. The premise could hardly be more inviting as the idea of a writer taking an idea from somebody else to achieve great success is perfect thriller material, but an unrealistic and unsophisticated plot along with the damp squib that is Crib, render it a missed opportunity.
Just like the main character in this story, Jean Hanff Korelitz is from New York City. She has published seven novels to date and achieved real success, seeing two of them adapted for film and television – The Undoing and Admission.
The Plot is her most recent novel and that will be followed by The Latecomer in 2022. Korelitz has also published a middle grade story called Interference Powder, and a poetry collection entitled The Properties Of Breath.
This book could have been great, but ultimately it just had too many flaws and did not live up to expectations. Even though the story always made me want to read on, it never came good on its promise.
My rating: ⭐⭐
Stephen Reads Books 