-My next guest is a "New York Times" best-selling author.
Her latest book, "The Plot,"
was this year's "Fallon Summer Read."
Everyone, please welcome Jean Hanff Korelitz.
-♪ Jean Hanff Korelitz ♪
♪♪
♪ Summer readin' with her novel called "The Plot" ♪
♪ About a teacher that commits a crime ♪
-Thanks for coming on. You look great.
-Thanks. -Welcome to the show.
I'm so happy to meet you.
-I'm even more happy to meet you.
-I love the book so much.
It was our "Fallon Summer Reads" winner, obviously.
When did you find out that you won?
-My husband and I were taking a road trip
to the exotic Upper Midwest. -Ooh.
-And we were on an island in the middle of Lake Michigan,
and I got a call from my editor,
and there was a lot of jumping up and down.
It was amazing. -Oh, good.
-The whole thing has been amazing.
-I love, love, love the book.
And when I read a book, I like to underline things
just to make sure -- There's things that I go like,
"Ooh, I got to remember that one."
-Right. -So I got one of these pens,
the one with all the -- all the little colors in there.
And I forgot they still make these,
but I go, "I love it."
And then if I see something where that's a red flag,
I'm going gonna red it, but I loved it.
I even, like, pulled out, like, page 60 and 61.
-What happens on 60 and 61? -Big pages.
-Okay. -I wrote --
Yeah, big pages right there.
These are big pages. A lot happens there.
You go like, "Ooh, wait a second."
I don't know how to describe the book
without giving anything away.
No spoilers here. -Right, right.
Well, it's a hard book to talk about
because there are so many things
we don't want people to know before they read it.
But it's about a failed writer
who is teaching a creative-writing class
and he has just this horrible, arrogant student
who claims that he has a brilliant book
that's gonna make him very rich and famous,
which is something we writers hear a lot from people.
But in this case, when he tells his teacher,
our hero, or anti-hero, the story, he has to agree.
It's really that good.
And when the student dies,
the teacher decides to appropriate the story,
not the manuscript.
There is no manuscript.
So it's not plagiarism, but it's something.
-Yeah, so the teacher doesn't like this punk
that's in his class, and this guy is going like --
Eh, he's bragging all about it.
And then years later -- Right? This is years --
-A couple years later. -Yeah, a couple years later,
he's like, "Wonder what ever happened to that book.
Because that was a good plot."
And he's looking the dude, googling --
Am I giving too much away? -When he -- When he discovers
that his former student has died...
-He's died. He has no family. -He cannot leave it alone.
-[ Whistles ] -It's too good, so.
-He takes it... -Yeah.
-...and then becomes a famous author,
on "The New York Times" best-seller --
-But he can't enjoy it because he's so worried
that somebody is going to come out
of the woodwork and accuse him. -Yeah.
-And then, of course, somebody does.
-He gets an e-mail. -He does.
It says, "You are a thief."
-Yup.
[ Laughter ]
-I was like, "That's all I needed."
That was such a great, fast, fun read.
I loved it so much.
I didn't see anything coming. You're so talented.
You're writing -- You're writing a book inside of a book.
-Yep. Bit of a challenge. -Yeah.
-Thank goodness for Google Spreadsheets.
-Yeah, is that what you use? -Yeah, I did.
-Another thing I thought was funny, but you --
I don't know if you did, but you've actually been accused
of stealing the idea of "The Plot."
The plot of "The Plot." -Yeah.
You know, I'm not sure if it's because the book
is about literary theft, but since the --
since people started reading it back in the spring
and I started to look at Goodreads reviews
and Amazon reviews,
I've been just amazed by the range of things
that people have accused me of stealing.
-Can you give us some examples.
-I brought a little list with me.
-You did? -I brought a little list.
-I love that. [ Applause ]
Tell me. How did you steal -- I want to hear it.
-Well -- -How do they think you --
-Remember, these are just the highlights.
I mean, there were many, many things.
But somebody's self-published e-book called "The Plot."
I didn't -- didn't read it. -Okay.
-An old episode of "Law & Order."
Well, you know, there have been episodes of
"Law & Order" about everything, so I guess it's possible.
-Yes, they probably did have one --
Yeah, an old episode of "Law & Order."
-Season four of "Riverdale."
[ Laughter ]
I haven't watched season four of "Riverdale"
because that would require me
watching seasons one through three.
-Two and three. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
One is great. Yeah.
-The movie "Yesterday" about the Beatles, which I have seen.
It's a great movie, but I have no idea what --
-I don't see the correlation between those two.
-And, of course, you know, every single novel
that's ever been written
about writers plagiarizing other novels.
And there are lots of them
because we are obsessed with plagiarism.
It's something that, you know --
And that's why I've been so gratified by -- by how --
how writers have responded to this book.
Because I felt when I wrote it, that I was sort of
writing this one for the team.
This one was for us. -Good for you. It was a great --
Thank you so much for writing.
You actually have a new book coming out already.
-I do. It's coming out in the spring.
It's called "The Latecomer."
And the cover was just revealed today, I think.
-"The Latecomer." But how do you --
How do you keep writing all of these?
-Well, I actually wrote a lot
of "The Latecomer" before "The Plot."
I was struggling with this novel,
"The Latecomer," and in the middle of it,
I got the idea for this, and then we had this pandemic.
I don't know if you heard about that, but --
-Yeah. But also, we should mention, too, "The Undoing."
You know, the awesome
Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, HBO...
[ Applause ]
Yeah. That was based off of your book.
-It was. It was. Although it traveled --
-[ Cheers and applause ] -That was fantastic.
-But it traveled very far from my book,
and I'm sometimes congratulated for things
connected to "The Undoing" that I'm not responsible for.
And I want to say,
"David E. Kelly did all the courtroom stuff."
My book didn't have that, but it was wonderful
to see what he did with it.
And, of course, it was a great thrill to watch it.
-Are we going to see "The Plot" as a movie or...?
-Well, it's been optioned for television,
but that's literally the only thing
I'm allowed to say about it. -There you go.
There you go right there. I love it.
Congrats on everything. Keep it up.
Jean Hanff Korelitz, everybody!
"The Plot" is available everywhere books are sold.
Go to your bookstores and pick this up.