The Plot

Jake Bonner, a once-promising novelist, now finds himself washed up and teaching in a third-rate creative writing program. During his tenure, Jake meets Evan Parker, an arrogant new student who thinks his work is bound for literary glory. Jake learns that Evan does have talent, and he braces himself for the possibility of Evan’s meteoric rise. But after a few years, it hasn’t happened. Jake discovers that Evan has died unexpectedly without publishing his work, so he steals the plot of one of Evan’s stories; the resulting work achieves fame in the literary world. Then Jake receives an email calling him out for the theft and threatening to discredit him. Events spiral out of control as Jake tries to figure out who wants to expose him. Further complications arise when he discovers that his cocky student may have had secrets of his own.