The Plot

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 2, Chapters 5-7

Part 3, Chapters 8-14

Part 3, Chapters 15-24

Part 4, Chapter 25-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Part 1, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “Anybody Can Be a Writer”

Author and professor Jacob Finch Bonner (Jake) commutes to his office at Ripley College in Northern Vermont from New York on a rainy June day. As he travels, the narrator explains the history of Ripley’s creative writing program, Jacob’s parents, childhood, and his dreams of being famous.

Now, however, it is the first day of the Ripley Symposia—a program for older, non-resident students—but Jacob demonstrates is burned out. He thinks about his successful first book, less successful second book, and the rejections of his third and fourth books. When he arrives at his office, he begins to read his 12 students’ folders of fiction.

Chapter 2 Summary: “The Hero’s Welcome”

The student work is mostly not very good. In the morning, Jake attends a faculty meeting on very little sleep and sees a couple new professors, but avoids talking to anyone and slips out as soon as the meeting is over. He goes to his temporary apartment to nap.

After napping, Jake attends the welcome cookout that is mandatory for faculty. There, a blond guy grabs a beer that Jake was reaching for, and Jake notices him being obnoxious throughout the rest of the event. A new poetry faculty member named Alice Logan compliments Jake’s writing.

In a flashback to Jake’s novels, we hear about his time in Queens working for a science fiction literary agent. In this job, Jake found a gem his bosses ignored; a competitor picked it up and it became wildly successful. Jake knows how to spot a good story. Jake then spent time in a MFA program on a “Midwestern campus”—an allusion to the University of Iowa’s famous creative writing program.

Back at the cookout, Jake learns Alice went to the same program, entering just after he graduated. She talks about her upcoming fall faculty position, and he’s jealous of her success. The guy who took Jake’s beer comes over and annoys them. Jake is sure this guy will be in his workshop.

Chapter 3 Summary: “Evan Parker/Parker Evan”

Jake turns out to be correct. The annoying guy—Evan Parker—walks into his workshop the next day. Jake introduces himself, and asks students to introduce themselves. When they come around to Evan, he reveals that he cares more about structuring plot than the craft of creating great sentences. Evan refuses to share the plot of the novel he’s writing with the class. Evan isn’t sure writing can be taught in the first place—he’s only in the program to find a literary agent and doesn’t plan to take advice from anyone. Jake talks about the advantages of having people read and critique in-progress writing, but Evan remains unconvinced.

Chapter 4 Summary: “A Sure Thing”

Jake rereads Evan’s writing sample before their first one-on-one meeting during office hours. The story is about the tension between a mother and her daughter in an old house. The sentence-level writing is pretty good, Jake begrudgingly admits, the small submitted section doesn’t reveal the plot. Korelitz includes an excerpt from Evan’s novel: A character named Ruby studies hard and wants to leave town because she doesn’t get along with her mother.

While Jake is thinking about plot structures and common mistakes in writing, Evan comes into his office. Jake compliments his work and asks what Evan is hoping to gain from the program. Evan mentions the program’s event where writers can meet agents; he is sure his book will be a great success. Jake warns Evan about the struggle, and sometimes failure, that writers face.

At first, Evan refuses to reveal the plot of his novel, wary that Jake will steal it. When Evan relents and tells Jake the plot, Jake thinks it is original and excellent. Evan’s writing is strong enough that Jake believes Evan will find all the success he dreams of, despite being a jerk. After Evan leaves, Jake is melancholic and resentful that someone like Evan will have better luck than him.

Part 1, Chapters 1-4 Analysis

Jake’s insecurities drive the novel. Jake’s lack of continued success after a strong first novel makes him question his identity as a writer and experience imposter syndrome: “he was not looking forward to pretending that he himself was still a writer, let alone a great one” (8). In his mind, he exists in “the special purgatory for formerly promising writers, from which so few of them ever emerged” (9). Jake also easily falls for flattery—particularly when it references his work. When Alice, a poet at Ripley, compliments his writing, “all of the narcotically warm feelings came rushing back. This was what it was to be admired, and thoughtfully admired at that, by someone who knew exactly how hard it was to write a good and transcendent sentence of prose!” (17-18).

As this specific weakness to flattery indicates, Jake believes that he is a good judge of story and craft: “He’d always known a good plot when he saw one” (16). As he reads his students’ work, he knows that “the more self-consciously ‘literary’ writing samples (some of them, ironically, among the worst written) were going to suck his soul” (12). However, this self-confidence is one of the novel’s many examples of dramatic irony: Jake can see his students’ mistakes on the page, but he cannot see his own mistakes off the page.