Harvard novelist's book deal canceled
More signs emerge of duplications
(Correction: Because of a reporting error, the ownership of publisher Little, Brown & Co. was misstated yesterday in a Page One story about writer Kaavya Viswanathan. Time-Warner Book Group, which includes Little, Brown, is part of the French media conglomerate Lagardere.)
Kaavya Viswanathan's publisher canceled her two-book contract yesterday, killing a short-lived plan to scrub the plagiarism from the Harvard sophomore's debut novel and reissue it.
The announcement came amid new reports of passages in Viswanathan's novel, ''How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life," that appeared to have been borrowed from two other authors. Last week Viswanathan admitted borrowing from two of Megan McCafferty's books but said she did so unintentionally after unconsciously ''internalizing" McCafferty's work.
''Little, Brown and Company will not be publishing a revised edition of 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,' nor will we publish the second book under contract," senior vice president and publisher Michael Pietsch said in a one-sentence statement. A spokeswoman said Little, Brown would have no further comment.
Cancellation of an already-published book is rare. In 2003, Alfred A. Knopf took Michael Bellesiles's prize-winning ''Arming America" out of print after the historian was found to have falsified his research and was forced to resign from Emory University. The book had been a best-seller in hardcover and had gone into paperback when it was canceled.
By contrast, ''Opal Mehta" was barely off the press when Little, Brown last week recalled as many as 50,000 unsold copies of the novel, which was published April 4. The 19-year-old writer admitted borrowing, in some cases verbatim, passages from McCafferty's ''Sloppy Firsts" and ''Second Helpings."
New signs of plagiarism surfaced yesterday, apparently as a result of e-mails and Internet chat from fans of the young-adult authors Sophie Kinsella and Meg Cabot. The online edition of the Harvard Crimson cited a near-duplication of a passage from Cabot's 2000 best-seller, ''The Princess Diaries," which was made into a movie. The New York Times reported yesterday that Viswanathan apparently also borrowed heavily from Kinsella's ''Can You Keep a Secret?"
Before the allegations of plagiarism emerged 10 days ago, Viswanathan was being hailed as a phenomenon. ''Opal Mehta" had a first printing of 100,000 copies, and Viswanathan had received a two-novel contract worth $500,000 at age 17, a month after arriving at Harvard. In an interview with the Globe in January, she said she wrote most of the book during her freshman year. The plagiarism scandal initially fueled sales of ''Opal Mehta."
In pulling the book last Thursday, Little, Brown announced it intended to relaunch the book at a future date, purged of the similarities to the McCafferty book. But publishing lawyers yesterday said that, in light of the new revelations, the publisher had to back away from Viswanathan altogether.
''Whether she did it on purpose or not, there was no way to feel comfortable relaunching the book," said John Taylor Williams, a literary agent and veteran publishing lawyer who in the past has represented Little, Brown. ''There was no floor to this. It was freefall. The risk of having another group of readers identify other sources is too great."
Viswanathan, who has not responded to the Globe's repeated requests for an interview, did not return a call to her cellphone yesterday. In a appearance on NBC's Today program last week, she said she was taking time off from Harvard. A Harvard spokesman last week said the university was looking into the plagiarism allegations, though it is not clear the school could do anything, since the novel is unrelated to her studies.
Canceling the book may reduce Little, Brown's legal liability in any copyright infringement suit but doesn't eliminate it, said Jonathan Kirsch, a Los Angeles author and publishing lawyer. In boilerplate language in publishing contracts -- including those used routinely by Little, Brown, which is a division of Time-Warner -- authors certify that their work is original and does not trespass on anyone's legal rights, including copyright.
Even so, Kirsch said, ''the publisher is plainly at risk. The fact that the publisher published, distributed, and sold the book constitutes infringement. Pulling the book off the shelves may have stopped an infringement suit but doesn't make the previous infringement go away."
McCafferty has expressed satisfaction with Little, Brown's pulling the book and said she would seek no restitution. Random House, whose imprints published both McCafferty's books and Kinsella's, declined to comment about the new allegations, as did HarperCollins, Cabot's publisher.
A Globe examination of the Viswanathan and Cabot books yesterday uncovered several more passages that appeared to be reproduced almost exactly. A passage on page 128 of ''The Princess Diaries" reads: ''And it is sort of hard when all these beautiful, fashionable people are telling you how good you'd look in this and how much that would bring out your cheekbones. . . . And I kept telling myself, She's only doing this because she loves you. . . ." Page 58 of ''Opal Mehta" reads: ''In my defense, it was hard to be uptight and prickly while surrounded by beautiful, fashionable people all telling me how good I'd look in that shade and what this color would do to enhance my cheekbones."
It was unclear yesterday whether Viswanathan or Alloy Entertainment, the so-called ''book packager" that holds the copyright on ''Opal Mehta" jointly with her, would have to return whatever portion of the advance they received.
For Little, Brown, recovering its advance is probably less pressing than protecting its reputation, said Williams, the literary agent. ''Little, Brown is a famous imprint with a reputation for very well-edited books," he said. ''This goes to the core of their reputation. They have put others in the line of fire -- retailers, their sales force. All their reputations could have been tarnished."
Alloy's role in helping the young author develop the book's concept and plot has provoked controversy among publishing experts. Alloy refused to comment again yesterday, as it has done since last week. Alloy, Little, Brown, and literary agency William Morris insisted that Viswanathan did all the writing in the book. Little, Brown is the publisher of four other young-adult series produced partly by Alloy.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported yesterday that the Record of Bergen County said it will review a dozen or so features that Viswanathan wrote for the 180,000-circulation daily paper in northern New Jersey while an intern in 2003 and 2004.
David Mehegan can be reached at mehegan@globe.com. 