Literary Paper Lions

Book packagers, drunken exaggerations, hoaxes: Why do we still expect authenticity from bestsellers?

Tim Cavanaugh from the July 2006 issue

(Page 2 of 10)

o:p> /o:p> /span> /p> p class="CRlargetext c3"> span class="c1"> o:p> /o:p> /span> /p> p class="CRlargetext c3"> span class="c1">Within a day, the story was national news. Within two days, Viswanathan was brought onto the Today show for a deft public dressing down by Katie Couric. A creepy new wrinkle appeared: Viswanathan had probably not written the book in any traditional sense. Instead she had “conceptualized” it in partnership with the “book packager” Alloy Entertainment. Before the week was out, publisher Little, Brown had pulped Opal Mehta