Literary Paper Lions

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

Tim Cavanaugh from the July 2006 issue

(Page 3 of 10)

, and Viswanathan’s literary career was effectively over. (It has since emerged that Opal Mehta may have also borrowed phrases and devices from several other successful authors.) 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">Viswanathan’s plagiarism, though it is the most serious charge against her, is only part of what made her radioactive. It was the careful packaging of both book and author by an army of experts, and the public exposure of the mechanics of that process, that put her into a recent rogues gallery that so far includes a defense industry