Publishers Lunch DeluxeMeanwhile, Lunch has obtained (that’s journalistic code for pretending you did a lot of hard work after someone dropped some documents on you) multiple documents asserted by the source to have been prepared by the principals representing author McCafferty. One section carefully cites over 40 passages from McCafferty’s two books accompanied by what are asserted as “duplicate passages in Viswanathan’s novel.” Another section cites 29 numbered comparisons (often a subset of those cited above) of “alleged infringing passage(s).” Presumably this is where today’s NYT piece gets its contention that “there are at least 29 passages that are strikingly similar,” but they don’t source their accusation. Many of the passages cited have similar (and in a few cases identical) page numbers as well, indicating that the “unconscious… similarities” often occurred at similar points in the respective books.
An additional section asserts an extensive overview of “identical scenes, plot points, and characters” shared between the books in question. It alleges: “After an initial, nearly original, 30-page set-up in Viswanathan’s novel, many of the primary plot points, characters, and settings in Viswanathan’s novel directly copy McCafferty’s work. Every major character in Viswanathan’s novel… is clearly modeled after a character from Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. Both novels are written in the first person, each narrated by a witty, high school honor student who lives in New Jersey, whose primary desire is to get into a specific Ivy League college (Columbia/Harvard).” [and more and more...]
Good reporting by Michael Cader who absolutely puts to shame the flimsy coverage of this story in other outlets.
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April 26, 2006 at 11:16 am
wfzimmerman
Publishers Marketplace has now posted the PDF document prepared by Crown listing possibly infringing passages. This is a curious document. At first glance, many of the alleged similarities are rather underwhelming with only a few words from a paragraph the same from book to book. Yet the cumulative effect is to persuade the reader that McCafferty book was indeed used as a template — whether from unconscious “channelling” or somewhere in the book packaging process. The other irony is that in my estimation many of Viswanathan’s choices are smarter, snappier, and more euphonic than McCafferty’s.
I’m too lazy or too busy (take your pick!) to walk through the specifics, so take a look at the PDF and judge for yourself.