JEAN HANFF KORELITZ ’83 Plot Boiler

JEAN HANFF KORELITZ ’83 Plot Boiler

PURSUITS

ALUMNI BOOKS

The Sequel: A Novel CELADON BOOKS 304 PP. $29

Jean Hanff Korelitz’s bestselling 2021 literary thriller The Plot, about a frustrated writer who lifts a story idea from one of his students, was satisfying in its own right. Her new book, The Sequel, picks up the narrative from the perspective of the writer’s grieving widow.

Anna Williams-Bonner, it turns out, has literary aspirations and gifts, too. They crystallize in her own novel, which draws on the presumptive suicide of her husband, Jacob Finch Bonner. There are other parallels: Like Jake, Anna has a past that stubbornly refuses to stay buried. That past surfaces here in the startling reappearance of pages from the book whose plot Jake purloined—a manuscript Anna was certain she had destroyed. Like Jake, Anna must discover the identity of her harasser or face the consequences ofexposure.

In The Plot, Korelitz invitedreaders to sympathize with Jake, whose single lapse in judgment exacted huge costs. As a protagonist, Anna is a tougher sell, less antihero than full-blown sociopath, a word Anna uses to describe herself in The Plot. In The Sequel, Anna’s slippery selfjustifications lead to a twisted, sometimes surprising killing spree that showcases Korelitz’s command of plot and detail.

Fortunately, like its predecessor, The Sequel also works on another level entirely: as a satire of the insecurities of writers, the insularity of U.S. literary culture, and the commercial demands of publishing. It touches, too, on the more philosophical question of the vexed relationship between autobiography and fiction. “[I]t strikes me as odd that so many people out there just tell the story of their own lives and call it fiction,” one of Anna’s antagonists says. “It speaks to a certain poverty of imagination.”

In the book’s epigraph, novelist Michael Chabon declares, “All novels are sequels.” Korelitz underlines the point by naming her chapters after sequels by other authors {Little Men, Bring Up the Bodies, and so on). With Anna awaiting her comeuppance, it seems likely that The Sequel could get a sequel of its own.

Julia M. Klein

EDITOR’S PICKS

LOUISE ERDRICH ’76

The Mighty Red,

Harper

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist returns with a story set in a North Dakota prairie town during the economic meltdown of 2008. Characters wrestle with powerful forces beyond their control and the devastation of their Red River Valley land. In this turbulent landscape they must cope with the fate of the earth, a home-wrecking love triangle, and their hardscrabble existence.

CARL LITTLE ’76

Art of Penobscot Bay

Islandport Press

This inlet of the Gulf of Maine abounds in unpredictable and extreme weather, which has attracted painters for hundreds of years. In this oversized paperback, a Maine art expert and his coauthor showcase the work of more than 120 artists who have captured the beauty of the bay’s villages, islands, and coves.

ALISON FRAGALE ’97

Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve

Doubleday

A research psychologist and professor offers an engaging take on what she’s learned about successful women during the past two decades. “Deep down, women understand the importance of status,” she writes. Fragale delivers a refreshing set of life hacks, practical advice, and “kick-ass” stories to help women cultivate a workplace reputation as both warm and kind—as well as assertive and competent.

SNOWDEN WRIGHT ’04

The Queen City Detective Agency

William Morrow

A private investigator hired by a grieving mother to find her son’s killer in 1980s Mississippi lands in the crosshairs of powerful—and dangerouscharacters in a funny, biting, Dixieland noir from the author of American Pop (2019).

MYRA SACK '10

Fifty-seven Fridays: Losing Our Daughter, Finding Our Way

Monkfish Book Publishing

In this heartbreaking memoir, Sack writes of the loving delight she and her husband shared with their daughter in the months before her death at age 2 from a rare neurodegenerative disease in 2021. “Demonstrates that grief is boundless, and you can love, cherish and mourn all at once,” according to People.

Additional titles and excerpts can be found on the DAM website.