The Plot by Jean Korelitz (digital book reader txt) 📗

To make matters worse—and worse was hardly what she needed—the mother of one of her classmates was in labor at the same time, which meant that the boy, a wrestler with raging acne, was on site, in and out of his mother’s room, walking her down the corridor, and sneaking fascinated looks in Samantha’s direction every time he passed her open doorway.

It was a long and interesting day, punctuated by indignities and agony and the very new and fascinating attentions of the hospital social workers, who seemed especially interested in the question of how she’d be filling out the Baby’s Father line on the forms.

“Can I say Bill Clinton?” she asked between contractions.

“Not if it isn’t true,” said the woman, who didn’t even smile. She wasn’t from Earlville. She looked like she came from money. Cooperstown, maybe.

“And you plan to remain in the family home after your child is born.”

It was a statement. Could it be a question?

“Do I have to? I mean, could I leave?”

The woman put her clipboard down. “Can I ask why you would want to leave the family home?”

“It’s just that, my parents don’t support my goals.”

“And what are your goals?”

To hand this baby off to someone else and finish high school. But she never got that out, because the next contraction hit her like a boulder, then something started beeping on the monitor and two nurses came in and after that she couldn’t remember much. When the pain stopped she was just waking up, it was the middle of the night outside, and next to her bed was something that looked like a portable aquarium, inside of which a red and wrinkled creature was squalling. That was her daughter, Maria, apparently.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENAn Unfortunate Side Effect of Success

About a week after their meeting, the attorneys representing Jake’s publisher inserted the following notice in the comments section after several of TalentedTom’s known appearances:

To the person posting here and elsewhere as TalentedTom: I am an attorney representing the interests of Macmillan Publishing and its author, Jacob Finch Bonner. Your malicious spreading of inaccurate information and unfounded suggestion of bad actions on the part of the author are unwanted and unwelcome. Under the laws of the State of New York it is unlawful to make deliberate statements with intent to harm a person’s reputation without factual evidence. This serves as a pre-suit demand that you immediately cease and desist all verbal attacks on all social media platforms, websites, and via all forms of communication. Failure to do so will result in a lawsuit against you, this social media platform or website, and any related or involved responsible party. Representatives of this social media platform have been contacted separately. Sincerely, Alessandro F. Guarise, Esq.

For a few days there was blessed silence, and the dreaded daily trawl of his Google alert for Jacob+Finch+Bonner produced nothing but reader reviews, gossip about casting for the Spielberg film, and an actual Page Six “sighting” of himself at a PEN fundraiser, shaking hands with an exiled journalist from Uzbekistan.

Then, in the space of a Thursday morning, it all went to shit: TalentedTom produced a communiqué of his own, this one sent—again, via email—to Macmillan’s Reader Services but also posted on Twitter, Facebook, and even a brand-new Instagram account, accompanied by lots of helpful tags to attract the attention of book bloggers, industry watchdogs, and the specific reporters at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal who covered publishing:

I regret to inform his many readers that Jacob Finch Bonner, the “author” of the novel Crib, is not the rightful owner of the story he wrote. Bonner should not be rewarded for his theft. He is a disgrace and deserving of exposure and censure.

So much for the deer in the headlights theory.

And so the day unfolded. It was a terrible day.

Within moments the contact form on his author website was forwarding comment requests from half a dozen book bloggers, an interview query from The Rumpus, and a nasty if illogical dispatch from somebody named Joe: I knew your book was crap. Now I know why. The Millions tweeted something about him by midafternoon and Page-Turner was hot on its heels.

Matilda, for one, remained sanguine, or so she was at pains to convey. This was all an unfortunate side effect of success, she said again, and the world—the world of writers in particular—was full of bitter people who believed they were owed something or other, by someone or other. The logic of this being something like:

If you could write a sentence you deserved to consider yourself a writer.

If you had an “idea” for a “novel” you deserved to consider yourself a novelist.

If you actually completed a manuscript you deserved to have someone publish it.

If someone published it you deserved to be sent on a twenty-city book tour and have your book featured in full-page ads in The New York Times Book Review.

And if, at any point on this ladder of entitlement, one of the aforementioned things you deserved failed to materialize, the blame for that must rest at whatever point you’d been unfairly obstructed:

Your daily life—for not giving you an opportunity to write.

The “professional” or already “established” writers—who’d gotten there quicker because of unspecified advantages.

The agents and publishers—who could only protect and burnish the reputations of their existing authors by keeping new authors out.

The entire book industrial complex—which (following some evil algorithm of profit) doubled down on a few name-brand authors and effectively silenced everyone else.

“In short,” Matilda said—and not being a natural soother, it came out sounding strained and wrong—“please, do not worry about this. Also, you’re going to get a ton of sympathy from your peers, and people whose opinion you actually care about. Just wait.”

Jake waited. She was right, of course.

There was a keep-your-chin-up! email from Wendy, and another from his contact at Steven Spielberg’s West Coast office, and still others from some of the writers he had once hung out with in New York (the ones who’d made it into the