Review: The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korrelitz

Title: The Sequel

Author: Jean Hanff Korelitz

Year published: 2024

Category: Adult fiction (mystery)

Pages: 304 pages

Rating: 4 out of 5

Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): USA (NY, GA, VT)

Summary: 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.

Review: I planned on reading this novel over the Thanksgiving weekend, but got in the mood for something light a couple days ago and this is the one I grabbed. I enjoyed Korelitz' novel The Plot (link to my review) back in April and this one felt good too.

Anna Williams-Bonner is just as psychotic in this book as she was in the first and I gotta' say I like it. She is smart, cunning, scheming, and seemingly has no qualms about knocking someone off if she feels they are getting in the way of her success and life. She isn't dramatic, she's practical. She isn't scary like a serial killer/horror movie, she's focused. She isn't dramatic, she's cool. In other words, she is terrifying because she is so unemotional about it all.

There is quite a bit of repeat of The Plot, to remind the reader, I am sure, but also to fill space. There is new, but it's the old reworked with added bits to round out the story. That sounds bad, but it isn't. The old storyline is more detailed this time around and as a reader I needed some reminding of the finer plot and details. Characters and locations from The Plot make appearances and things feel tidied up at the end of this novel. We see that Anna (or whomever she really is) is totally in control. And, Jean Hanff Korelitz uses her sense of satire to mock the publishing world while living in it.

Challenges for which this counts: 

• Bookish--main character is an author, manuscripts
• Cloak and Dagger