It’s day three of the plagiarism scandal du jour, and Crown — who published the Megan McCafferty books Kaavya Viswanathan admitted to using as source material for her own book — isn’t exactly happy with the issued apologies by the author and her own publisher, Little, Brown.
Steve Ross, the senior vice president and publisher of Crown Publishers and Three Rivers Press – two subsidiaries of Random House – characterized Viswanathan’s statement as “deeply troubling and disingenuous,” said the Harvard Crimson, who’s been at the forefront of coverage on this story. “This extensive taking from Ms. McCafferty’s books is nothing less than an act of literary identity theft,” Ross said yesterday. “Based on the scope and character of the similarities, it is inconceivable that this was a display of youthful innocence or an unconscious or unintentional act.”
And the number of plagiarized passages has increased from 13 to 29 to 45 now, as McCafferty’s agent Joanna Pulcini said by email to the paper. “Many [passages] include identical phrasing, establish primary characters, and contain shared plot developments…It is understandably difficult for us to accept that Ms. Viswanathan’s plagiarism was ‘unintentional and unconscious,’ as she has claimed.”
The Boston Globe spoke to Ross by telephone, who reported that McCafferty “feels like something fundamental was taken” from her as a result of the copying. And there’s still no word on what Little, Brown will do next, but keep in mind that revisions to Viswanathan’s book would take many months — and as Ross added, “in the meantime, the current books would still be available.”