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The scandal is a week old now - Kaavya Viswanathan is the Harvard sophomore who plagiarized passages of her debut novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life from two of author Megan McCafferty's books. But boy, what a week it's been, and everyone (for better or worse) is still talking about it.
First, The Crimson broke the story about Viswanathan's prolific cribbing from McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings (while this is a roundup of what The Crimson calls "the clearest parallels", the tally has gone as high as 45 similar passages). The discovery, according to McCafferty's agent, is attributed to a fan emailing the author after reading Opal Mehta. At first, Viswanathan's response to The Crimson was denial. Last week the story evolved to the catchphrases "unintentional and unconscious", which she repeated in her somewhat-pathetic interview with Katie Couric on Today.
McCafferty's publishers, Crown (part of Random House), basically responded with a big fat "oh no she di'n't!", saying the apology was disingenuous. Big words! But it got nastier as the week progressed - Little, Brown is now recalling the books from shelves. Ostensibly, Little, Brown is sticking to their earlier pledge to revise the novel and re-release it, but Random House calls the book "literary identity theft" so the book could be gone for good. The publishing community can't stop talking about it, with GalleyCat dubbing it CopyKaavya.
And now, there's even more brewing about how the book got "made" and the questions about the book-packaging and shaping that went on with Viswanathan's deal. Svengali much? Ahh, there's like the scandal that keeps on scandaling. Just when the James Frey thing was getting really tired, too.
Update: Oh, snap! The Book Standard reports there won't be a revised edition of Opal - and that Viswanathan's won't be doing a second book. Next, we imagine her agent will drop her, only for another agent to swoop in to sell her story "How Kaavya Got Knocked Down and Got Up Again."
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Now there are rumblings that she plagiarized sections of Sophie Kinsella's "Can You Keep a Secret?"
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Young-Author.html
I saw that today. I'm not quite as convinced by some of the parallels, which seem like you COULD just chalk them up to really unoriginal writing.
Here's another big word, Schadenfreude. In the words of the Gleason, oh how sweet it is!
You know what else is a big word? Disingenuous.
Krissa hath saith: "I'm not quite as convinced by some of the parallels, which seem like you COULD just chalk them up to really unoriginal writing."
puuhhlleeasse.....look at the boxed copy in the Times. Those passages are nearly identical. A statistical fluke or deliberate copying? You be the judge.
Look, whatever - everyone knows two or three people who've got a novel sitting on their CPU waiting to be sold but lack the sexy market glow of a 19-year-old Ivy-covered Indian-American. The publishers, as is their style, put the cart before the horse and are getting exactly what they paid for. Who cares about Kaavya? She's like any other kid - more ambitious than capable. This is an industry problem.
When things of a scandalous nature com-a-knockin’, there is usually a circle the wagons approach among those who are close to the perpetrator of the act in question. Yes, the publisher has stood by her, but we have not heard a peep from any of her acquaintances or so-called friends. Kinda strange. Also, this all must be so incredibly stressful for the plagiarist’s family. One wonders what must be going on there. Are they coddling her or excoriating her for bringing this great shame upon the family. Oh, to be a fly on that wall!
It's either hit or miss with the indian chicks, they're either really hot or total dogs. still debating, the verdict is still out. what do you think?
Little, Brown girl...big fat thief!
Why, thank you, Stickler. I'll correct that.
And I DID look at the boxed copy. The animal-rights comparison seemed suspicious, but "eyes so dark they seemed black", is, well, just kind of a tired cliche, isn't it? But I suppose you can't take anything for granted once someone has plagiarized.
The joke of this is that these kids will write a chick-lit manuscript, send it to publishers or agents, and then when the story is signed, they send it to some packager or editing house that *completely rewrites it*! Has anyone noticed that Alloy Entertainment is the same book packager for Viswanathan, McCaffery, and Kinsella? And now
What I am wondering is why no one is plumbing this mine for answers. Alloy has consistently said "no comment" when asked why the only three things these books have in common is THEM and their editors.
Oh, and BTW, Alloy co-owns the books they package, which means the copyright is half theirs. So I'm sure somewhere they thought they were plagurizing themselves.
It seems to me that someone either told this girl that it was okay to lift material since they co-owned it, or the editors/rewriters just went ahead and did it themselves, and now they are hanging this girl out to dry. But I have a hard time that a girl who is so success-driven, who is at Harvard, and who is focused would not know what kind of shitstorm she would bring on to herself by just copying other author's words.
The nyc classified ads have plenty of jobs for 'ghostwriters,' but the pay is generally some paltry sum like a few thousand bucks and the deadlines are laughably short. The employer is generally listed as 'confidential.' I wonder who places these ads - is it the author, the packager, the publisher or the william morris agency? Could be that the teen girl novels are written by plump, middle aged men in Flushing. The players in the Viswanathan drama never seem to address the question of whether a ghostwriter was involved.
Let's get one thing straight--Megan McCafferty (everyone, please do this woman the courtesy of spelling her name right) waas NOT packaged by Alloy and has nothing to do with the company. Neither does Sophie Kinsella, as far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong, of course). I agree the whole Alloy connection seems shady, but let's not get our facts mixed up.
Perhaps I haven't looked hard enough but I've found no confirmation that Kinsella or McCafferty worked with Alloy - funnily enough, though, tons of bloggers have RUMORED that to be the case.
I suspect that J. Dobkin was ghostwriting both the McCafferty & Viswanathan books, hence the similarities. A close analysis of writing styles show that gothamist's use of the word 'totally' in every paragraph closely resembles the verbiage in these teen girl novels.
My mistake, and thanks for pointing it out.
Allow me to clarify: McCafferty and Viswanathan had the same editor, Claudia Gabel. Gabel was at Crown with McCafferty, and then went to Alloy to work with Viswanathan. And Alloy co-owns the Opal story. So, yes, Anon is correct that McCafferty never worked with Alloy, but her editor did. And she's not talking, as is no one else at Alloy.
Let's face it, none of them were copying from Dickens. And in the world of packagers and mass-produced stories and co-owned manuscripts and pseudonymous work-for-hire, whose words are whose tends to become very grey.
If this scandal rekindles the Frey scandal then that's kinda good for this book A Million Little Pieces of Feces - The fake memoir that's so much more fun than James Frey's