‘THE PLOT’ THICKENS: A BOOK REVIEW

The Plot is the first book I’ve read that includes Facebook and twitter as important characters.

No that’s not a spoiler.

Neither is this: they’re cast in a dark light.

Did I enjoy reading The Plot?

A reviewer on Amazon said the first third drags along but that’s the part I most enjoyed.

Whiny writers complaining about their lives? Hell yeah.

I also enjoyed Humboldt’s Gift if you were wondering.

There’s something about a disappointed writer dying on park bench that appeals to me.

Fight against the dying of the light. Am I right?

Do your best work like John Kennedy Toole, but skip the part about dying disappointed.

If you need a book with a stricken looking author photo inside the back cover, The Plot is for you.

That’s what got me, along with Stephen King’s “Insanely readable” on the front.

Crazy looking writer lady blurbed by horror maestro?

Yessssss.

The Plot Structure

Three acts? First. Second. Third?

Where do you think you are? Broadway?

Interspersing points of view in alternating chapters until they meet toward the end?

Time shifting for the sake of backstory?

Even better, The Plot is a story about a story that includes the actual fictional story.

Some might call that the easy way out, or space filler, but I call it golden since it’s supposed to be part of a world wide wonder novel with a tricky twist.

It’s telling that my idea of a tricky twist is The Crying Game.

The Crying Game is famous for its shocking twist, but this thoughtful, haunting mystery grips the viewer from start to finish.

Shocking twist, tricky twist, it’s supposed to be a surprise. And it is in The Plot.

What Passes For A Twist?

I’m not a big whodunit fan, but I still dig in, I still go along with the writer to see what they do.

So do you? It’s a joy when they land the story just so.

Even when the subject is hurtful, especially when the subject is hurtful.

Hurts so good is what you’re looking for, what I’m looking for, and I want to be positive:

Writer encouragement works like this:

“I just read a book so good I will stop writing forever.”

That’s encouragement if you read between the lines.

Read a book that moves you to feel something.

My favorite book?

The one that makes me turn the page.

At the moment that book is The Plot.

Jean Hanff Korelitz takes a shot at a writer-man who had his Golden Ticket punched to Midwestern University’s MFA program for writers.

But it isn’t named, this university. Could it be Northwestern?

Not likely. It has to be Iowa Writers Workshop.

By the way, music works the same way. You hear someone play so well you want to stop trying because you’ll never be as good as them.

Goodbye guitar, so long singer.

Then it sinks in: The point is practicing and playing enough to satisfy that creative urge. But most don’t do it often enough and remain disappointed in their progress.

Or their backward slide.

Perusing Powells After A Portland Play

We had an hour before dinner reservations, my wife and I, celebrating an anniversary that didn’t end in a 5 or 0, but still important.

Call it our Alabaster Anniversary.

We walked in the Powells’ door on NW 11th and looked around.

I saw The Plot, read a little, and decided to make the big buy.

My wife said we had it at home, that she’d already read it.

We like reading the same books, or she likes piling them on my desk as if she knows what I like.

Now I know. And now we’ll have to talk about it over a nice bowl of her special soup for good measure.

She’s a fast reader, I’m a plodder. For that I blame Evelyn Wood.

So far my published writing includes newspaper columns, museum research pieces, and over 3000 posts on boomerpdx.

My unpublished writing includes a cancer memoir WIP, three feature length screenplays, and the same dream as Jake: Make a splash.

My big hurdle is avoiding the topics I find most compelling because they are the worst of humanity.

War. Death. Murder. And the most awful of all, family saga drama generations in the making.

I don’t know who watches more WWII docs than me. There’s always new information to glean, at least that’s my story. And they are uniformly awful.

But they never disappoint in war, death, murder, or family drama.

The Plot didn’t disappoint, but instead of a global stage the action occurs in Vermont, New York, and Georgia.

You’ve got to love a book that includes a Georgia man saying, “We’ve come a long way since Deliverance.”

As more of an internal story, The Plot will churn your guts.

Have you read it?