“To Jake, the word that comprised the relationship between a writer and their spark was ‘responsibility.” Once you were in possession of an actual idea, you owed it a debt for having chosen you, and not some other writer, and you paid that debt by getting down to work, not just as a journeyman fabricator of sentences but as an unshrinking artist ready to make painful, time-consuming, even self-flagellating mistakes.”
In this unusual novel of writers and writing, which evolves into a riveting study of mystery and murder, main character Jacob Finch Bonner is working at a Creative Writing program on the Ripley Campus in Northern Vermont. He has been successful with his first book, receiving a “New and Noteworthy” mention in the New York Times Book Review. A graduate of the creative writing program of Wesleyan University, he has been less successful with his second book, and he has not yet even produced a third. Believing he has “fumbled his early shot,” he is not looking forward to this teaching job and having to pretend he is still a writer. At a get-together for the newcomers, he is not encouraged by the “utterly ordinary” appearance of most of the potential writers for his class, though one particularly “obnoxious and pretentious” blond man, Evan Parker, espouses a belief that plot is all, that if it’s not a good plot, the best writing in the world is not going to help.
The antagonistic family in Parker’s story lived in an old house where the front hall featured pineapple decorations, ironically the symbol of hospitality.
After his first session with this man, Jake admits to himself that Parker’s writing sample of eight pages is without obvious defects, and he is surprised to feel that Parker may be a natural writer with a relaxed and appreciative relationship with language. Parker’s story about a mother and daughter who live in an old house in mutual loathing of each other, is one that Parker believes will be read by everyone – and that it will make him a fortune. When Jake eventually hears the whole plot line, he recognizes that it is, in fact, so “out of nowhere and outrageous” that “the worst writer on the planet could not mess up a plot like this.” Everyone will read it. Unfortunately, Jake also recognizes that “Any ideas he [himself] might have had for another story would, from this afternoon on, suffer the fatal impact of not being the story he had just been told.”
The artist colony in Saratoga Springs, NY, where Jake Bonner was hired as program coordinator may have resembled that of the Yaddo colony.
Two and a half years later, the Ripley Symposium has been canceled and the staff laid off. Jake is now in an area west of Albany, New York, working on an editing program when he applies as program co-ordinator for an artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs and is hired. Still lacking inspiration for a new book, he feels like a “deck hand on the Titanic,” all of his potential gone. Curious about why, after almost three years, he has heard nothing more about Evan Parker and his great novel idea, he looks him up and discovers that not only has he not published his book, he has died, predeceased by both his parents and a sister, with a niece his only remaining relative. It is not long before Jake begins to take heart, believing that “every now and then, some magical little spark flew up out of nowhere and landed…in the consciousness of a person capable of bringing it to life,” and that “once you were in possession of an actual idea, you owed it a debt for having chosen you…and you paid that debt by getting down to work…rising to this responsibility.” He also believes that “if you fail in this grave responsibility, you might well find…that your precious spark has left you.” He gets to work.
Clifford Irving served 17 months in prison for writing a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes.
Three years later, Jacob Finch Bonner, author of his brand new book “CRIB,” has sold over two million copies. The book is still number two on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list after nine months as Number One, it is Oprah’s October selection, and twenty-four hundred people have turned up at the auditorium where he is being interviewed. When the interviewer asks how he came up with the idea for the plot, he begins to get uncomfortable. Though he wrote every word himself, he gradually becomes more nervous, then scared, and ultimately terrified that someone may know the original source of the book. The plights of authors Clifford Irving, who wrote a hoax autobiography of Howard Hughes and served seventeen months in prison because of it; Stephen Glass, who was caught writing fictional “news” stories for the New Republic; James Frey, who wrote memoirs that were exaggerated or fabricated; Greg Mortenson, who included falsehoods in his books and mishandled donations to a charitable organization; and Jerzy Kosinski, who was accused of plagiarism by numerous journalists, all appear in the author’s thoughts, and when he begins to receive mysterious, anonymous messages from someone who appears to know the real story and its source, he panics.
Author Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of seven novels and is also a playwright, theatre producer and essayist.
Great fun to read, the primary purpose of the novel is to entertain while considering the role of plot in the success of any fiction. Because the plot within this novel, which is responsible for Jake’s astounding success, is the same story which makes this book by Jean Hanff Korelitz so successful, any attempt to summarize that plot would spoil the whole reason for reading it. It is a meticulously constructed novel which has a love story, several murders, intense relationships, shifts of focus among various characters and generations, and changes of location, and it is hard to imagine any reader becoming bored or tired of the action. The author is careful to keep the two plot lines from becoming confused. The story of Jake Bonner, nervous author of the bestseller “CRIB,” and the story within the story which originated with Evan Parker, will, of course, eventually merge, but that merger happens gradually and with plenty of foreshadowing. Readers like me who take notes in anticipation of writing a review may draw some conclusions about the true source of all the anonymous messages before the book’s actual conclusion, but even when that occurs, there are still enough mysteries to keep a reader involved and thoroughly occupied. Fun to read and filled with real surprises, this is a pop novel which well deserves its popularity.
Photos: Pineapple decorations are a symbol of hospitality, but that is an ironic symbol in Evan Parker’s story, as the two women who lived together in an antique house “mutually loathed” each other. https://inthevintagekitchen.com
The artist colony in Saratoga Springs, NY, where Jake Bonner was hired as program coordinator may have resembled that of the famous Yaddo Colony: https://www.wamc.org
Clifford Irving served seventeen months in prison for writing a hoax autobiography of Howard Hughes, and Bonner worries also about being regarded as a fake. http://content.time.com
Author Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of seven novels and is also a playwright, theatre producer and essayist. https://commons.wikimedia.org
