Plot
June Hayward, an unsuccessful young author, finds herself the only witness to the death of her former classmate and casual friend, Athena Liu, a Chinese-American author who is an industry darling. On the night of Athena's death, June steals from her apartment her latest unpublished manuscript The Last Front, a novel about Chinese laborers in World War I. Considering the novel to be unfinished, June decides to re-edit it and ― after feeling greater ownership of it through her editing ― submits it as her original work. June is immediately offered a large advance after independent publishing house Eden Press wins the bidding war for the book. June defends her decision to the reader, claiming that the manuscript would never have been published in its original form and that Athena often stole the life experiences of others as material for her works including a date rape incident June survived while at Yale (for which she considers The Last Front "reparations") and veterans' service during the Korean War.
Having positioned herself as a close friend and confidant of Athena to address perceived similarities between The Last Front and Athena's other work, she publishes the book under an Asian-sounding name (Juniper Song, her full first name and middle name) and takes author photos where she appears racially ambiguous. Despite efforts to present herself as Asian, controversy surrounds the success of the novel, and June repeatedly fends off accusations of cultural appropriation on Twitter. The book becomes an instant bestseller. While attending publicity events for the novel, June sees visions of Athena sitting in the audience.
Before and after the book's publication, June attempts to prevent public revelations of her plagiarism of The Last Front. After Athena's mother Patricia decides to donate Athena's notes to a Yale literary archive, June manages to dissuade her from doing so by playing on her fears of revelations concerning Athena's true nature, and declines her offer to take the notes for herself. An anonymous social media user called @AthenaLiusGhost claims that the book was stolen from Athena, emphasises that June is not Asian diaspora and starts an online shaming campaign calling for Eden Press to acknowledge Athena as its author, resulting in June receiving abusive messages including death threats. Eden Press trusts June when she says that the allegations are false, with her agent encouraging to ignore them and to go offline. With the help of her IT technician brother-in-law, June surmises that the @AthenaLiusGhost accounts are being operated by Geoffrey Carlino, Athena's ex-boyfriend whose own literary career ended following poor reviews of his debut novel, several scandals and allegations and an online tirade against Athena after she broke up with him. During a meet-up, when Geoff asserts that he saw Athena conducting research for The Last Front but cannot offer evidence beyond hearsay, June leads him to suggest that she pay for his silence and manages to record it to undermine his credibility and motives. Threatening to ruin his reputation further and sue him for defamation, she coerces him into shutting down the @AthenaLiusGhost accounts, quieting public debate over the plagiarism accusations.
Despite her plagiarism not being found out and being financially solvent from sales of The Last Front, June tries to maintain her literary career and celebrity by writing a novella Mother Witch using as inspiration (and wholesale as an opening paragraph) a handwritten passage also taken from Athena's apartment. With the passage being a known poem of Athena's, June is again accused of plagiarising Athena's work. After managing to convince Eden Press that she confused Athena's poem with one of her own notes and with no litigation forthcoming from Athena's literary estate, Eden Press insist that June rewrite the opening of Mother Witch and focus on her next book. However, public belief that June plagiarised Athena persists, with June facing public confrontations and ostracism within the literary world because of it and receiving support primarily from conservative news outlets and commentators over free speech and cancel culture.
During work on her next project, June faces writer's block, believing that she can only write about Chinese themes due to the amount of research she has conducted and her success with The Last Front. After rejecting the idea of doing intellectual property work, June is eventually inspired to write a roman à clef account of her theft of The Last Front, partly to sow doubt over the plagiarism accusation's validity and partly to exorcise "Athena's ghost", feeling that she can only write because of Athena's influence. After Athena's inactive social media accounts begin posting accusations of plagiarism and disturbing Photoshopped images of Athena exclusively to June, June's book soon develops into a horror story but she ends up writing herself into a corner, unwilling to end it with Athena's ghost exacting revenge. Confronting Geoff in the belief that he is responsible, he asserts his innocence. With June still unable to admit to stealing and plagiarising Athena's work, she and Geoff confide in each other their thoughts on Athena (with Geoff claiming that Athena subjected him to emotional manipulation for material), and Geoff advises June not to confront whoever is posting from Athena's accounts.
Unable to take the stress anymore and convinced that Athena is somehow still alive, June agrees to meet "Athena" at the " Exorcist steps" at the Georgetown University campus. After hearing Athena's disembodied voice, June confesses to her theft of The Last Front and feelings of resentment towards Athena's success, and promises to do anything to make amends. However, it is revealed that "Athena" was in fact Candice Lee, a former assistant at Eden Press that June got fired for insisting on hiring a sensitivity reader and leaving a negative online review for The Last Front, and that Athena truly is dead. Having been effectively blacklisted from the publishing industry, Candice sought revenge on June, orchestrating the social media posts that led June to confess and recording it. After June fails to persuade Candice ― who, as a Korean-American, disliked Athena as her career and celebrity denied opportunities for other Asian American writers ― not to release the recording, June's frustrations boil over and she fights Candice for it, but in the struggle June falls and is hospitalized.
After being discharged from hospital, June learns that Candice has made the confession public and has been given multiple offers (including from Eden Press) to write a memoir. Not wanting to contemplate a future in which she cannot write and hoping to sow doubt over Candice's claims, June is inspired to write her own account. She plans to frame her theft and plagiarism as a hoax designed to expose the publishing industry for pitting female authors against one another and manufacturing Athena's literary success, and depict herself as a victim and protagonist and Candice as a cyberbully.
