The Sequel

In Korelitz’s The Plot, Anna Williams-Bonner murdered her writer husband Jake and made it look like a suicide, all in an attempt to keep him from unearthing her untidy past. She’d murdered her parents and daughter, invented a new life for herself, then killed her brother when he wrote a tell-all novel about her and showed it to his writing teacher, who happened to be Jake. Jake borrowed its plot and wrote it up as his own book, The Crib, which became an instant success. Then Jake started digging into Anna’s past, and she had to take care of him too. Now, in Korelitz’s follow-up to The Plot, Anna is enjoying life as the widow of her newly famous late husband. She’s written a deceitful book about the experience and is on tour promoting it. But someone is refusing to follow the script she’s prepared; cryptic notes, pages from her brother’s manuscript start showing up around her. What is a respectable woman to do? Anna sets out to find the culprits and remove them and the manuscript from the world forever. Along the way, she kills an innocent person, but that’s just a mistake. From then on, the victims get what’s due to them.