49 pages • 1 hour read
The Sequel
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Background
Cultural Context: The Publishing Industry
The Sequel is a satirical novel that interrogates the book publishing industry. In the contemporary book world, publishing is dominated by the culturally dubbed Big Five: Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan Publishers. These are the top five highest grossing publishing houses and are perceived in the literary world as gateways to authorial success. These houses require writers to work with an agent in order to query their desired publisher. Finding an agent is dependent upon literary prowess and financial means.
When Penguin merged with Random House in 2013, Gerald Howard, a retired book editor for the companies, experienced “this period of flux, and he saw before him a brutal, profit- and growth-obsessed landscape, inimical to his work,” as detailed in a New York Times article on the evolution of the industry (Lozano, Kevin. “How Has Publishing Changed American Fiction?” The New Yorker, 1 Nov. 2023). Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel hyperbolizes the industry’s obsession with financial gain and history of gatekeeping. Within this context, Anna Williams-Bonner’s story highlights the “relentless quest for profits above quality” that the industry promotes and subjects aspiring writers to (Lozano). A character like Anna is able to find artistic success because she has direct connections to the publishing world and the top agents and editors. Indeed, not “many first-time novelists” have these connections or are offered “a profile in the New York Times” as Anna is in The Sequel (22). Furthermore, her husband Jake Bonner only found success in writing fiction after he stole his late student Evan Parker’s story. The author is using these narrative scenarios in order to comment upon the industry and to ask questions about the dissipation of small presses and the ways in which “the U.S. trade publishing business [is] dominated by […] the Big Five” (Milliot, Jim. “Over the Past 25 Years, the Big Publishers Got Bigger—and Fewer.” Publishers Weekly, 19 Apr. 2022).
The book world and publishing industry is also centralized in New York City. Access to the Big Five, to elite agents and editors, is directly correlated with an aspiring writer’s proximity to this metropolitan realm. Korelitz has set The Sequel primarily in New York City and frequently references specific book fairs, bookstores, and book events as a way to ground the novel in the New York publishing scene.
Series Context: The Book Series
The Sequel is the second installment in Korelitz’s The Book series. It is preceded by the series’ first novel, The Plot. The Sequel can function as a standalone narrative, but also furthers the primary characters’ storylines from The Plot. In The Plot, an aspiring writer and writing professor named Jake Bonner is desperate for literary success. Although he has published several novels, he hasn’t made any money from these publications, nor has he been able to establish a reputation for himself in the book world. Then he learns that his former student, Evan Parker, has died, so he decides to convert Evan’s original story idea into a widely acclaimed novel called Crib. Shortly thereafter, Jake starts getting threatening messages online. The sender accuses him of stealing his student’s story and plagiarizing Evan’s work. Distraught, Jake tells his new wife, Anna Williams-Bonner, about the issue, only to discover that she is Evan’s sister, Dianna Parker. Anna has married him in order to get revenge on him for exploiting her story. She then kills Jake, inheriting his estate, which includes his books.
The Sequel picks up where The Plot ends, focusing on Anna’s life after Jake’s death and on her attempts to move past the events detailed in The Plot. The Sequel delves into Anna’s childhood and reveals a more in-depth explanation of Evan’s character and past. The novel therefore shifts its focus from Jake to Anna and uses her as a narrative device by which to interrogate the publishing industry and raise complex questions about the impact of hidden trauma.
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By Jean Hanff Korelitz
