A Simple Plan, by Scott Smith

Reviewed by: The Blind Monkey

In light of the recent hooplah regarding the movie “A Simple Plan,” I decided to revisit the book for an indepth look at why this story is so lame (Whoops — kinda let the cat out of the bag there, didn’t I?).

Okay, A Simple Plan was written by Scott Smith. An all-American boy with a boring name and an even sleepier style of writing. Let’s begin with that – the style. For anyone who’s read The Good Brother by Chris Offutt (And I know there’s some of you freaks out there), the Plan will sound familiar from chapter one. In fact, when I began reading this book I had to constantly keep looking at the jacket to assure myself that Offutt hadn’t written it. I found the setting, tone, and descriptive phrasing so similar that I almost couldn’t stand it.

But at least Offutt’s tale developed a unique and semi-interesting plot with idenitifiable and compelling characters. Unfortunately, these are two characteristics of good storytelling that A Simple Plan is never quite able to define.

Let’s continue with the plot. Two brothers and a friend find $4 million in the cockpit of a downed plane in the snow, and you can guess what happens. They must decide to keep it or give it back, and eventually decide to keep it. And that’s where the plan comes in, all they have to do is wait. This “I found a gazillion dollars, what do I do now?” story is so overdone, how can there be any doubt that you know what will happen? Someone will get greedy, someone’s conscience will get the better of them, someone will get suspicious, and things will spiral out of control. Yeah, yeah, quite a story.

Well – it’s not horrible. I didn’t give it the ‘green banana’ or anything. Many of you might find even the quaint rural setting and protagonist’s “good ‘ol boy” mentality semi-charming. But something about these characters and the completely obvious plot turns just rubbed my fur the wrong way. You’d better REALLY be hurting for entertainment before you pass up all the other fabulous stories in the world just to join all the mindless twits that made this tale a New York Times best-seller.

But in case you enjoyed it, I should comment that sometimes it’s okay to be a mindless twit. You were smart enough to visit this site, so I guess I like you anyway.

Mass Market Paperback Reprint edition (August 1994) St Martins Mass Market Paper; ISBN: 0312952716 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.97 x 6.76 x 4.22