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The Book Series #2
by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Book Reviewed by:After the "insanely readable" (Stephen King) and "perfectly told" (Malcolm Gladwell) New York Times bestseller The Plot comes Jean Hanff Korelitz's equally captivating new novel: The Sequel.
Anna Williams-Bonner has taken care of business. That is to say, she's taken care of her husband, bestselling novelist Jacob Finch Bonner, and laid to rest those anonymous accusations of plagiarism that so tormented him. Now she is living the contented life of a literary widow, enjoying her husband's royalty checks in perpetuity, but for the second time in her life, a work of fiction intercedes, and this time it's her own debut novel, The Afterword. After all, how hard can it really be to write a universally lauded bestseller?
But when Anna publishes her book and indulges in her own literary acclaim, she begins to receive excerpts of a novel she never expected to see again, a novel that should no longer exist. That it does means something has gone very wrong, and someone out there knows far too much: about her late brother, her late husband, and just possibly... Anna, herself. What does this person want and what are they prepared to do? She has come too far, and worked too hard, to lose what she values most: the sole and uncontested right to her own story. And she is, by any standard, a master storyteller.
With her signature wit and sardonic humor, Jean Hanff Korelitz gives readers an antihero to root for while illuminating and satirizing the world of publishing in this deliciously fun and suspenseful read.
Chapter One
It Starts with Us
First of all, it wasn't even that hard. The way they went on, all those writers, so incessantly, so dramatically, they might have been going down the mines on all fours with a plastic spoon clenched between their teeth to loosen the diamonds, or wading in raw sewage to find the leak in the septic line, or running into burning buildings with forty-five pounds of equipment on their backs. But this degree of whining over the mere act of sitting down at a desk, or even reclining on a sofa, and … typing?
Not so hard. Not hard at all, actually.
Of course, she'd had a ringside seat for the writing of her late husband's final novel, composed—or at least completed—during the months of their all-too-brief marriage. She'd also had the master-class-for-one of his previous novel, the wildly successful Crib. True, the actual writing of that novel had predated their meeting, but she'd still come away from it with a highly nuanced understanding of how that ...
In Anna, Korelitz has brilliantly created a sympathetic antihero. Her sleuthing into the identity of her nemesis and what they want from her takes from her from New York City to Vermont, where Jake taught, and finally to Georgia; throughout this journey, her intelligence, fiery determination, and savvy instincts are impressive and compelling. Her backstory, which is developed over the course of the novel in tight prose flashbacks and from excerpts of Evan's manuscript, propels the plot hand-in-hand with her current actions...continued
Full Review
(664 words)
(Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski).
In The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, readers get a taste of what authors go through in the rite of publishing passage known as "the book tour." For new or established authors, a book tour usually includes an (often hectic) travel schedule to bookstores, schools, and writing conferences; book signings; and readings from their work. For readers and book buyers who attend these events, it can seem like a sweet deal. But what is it like on the other side for the author? A lot of work, it turns out.
Science fiction writer John Scalzi revealed the inside skinny on a typical book tour in a 2017 Los Angeles Times article. The first thing he mentions is the sheer amount of disorientation an author may feel with so much travel. For Scalzi, one ...
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