So, Another Advance Is Out Of The Question, Then?

The Harvard student-turned-author who confessed yesterday to “accidentally” plagiarizing parts of her first novel, has now been blasted by the publisher of the book she copied from. “In a statement issued today, [a senior VP of Crown Publishing] said that, ‘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.” The executive, Steve Ross, also says that there are more than 40 apparently lifted passages in Viswanathan’s novel, and calls the situation “nothing less than an act of literary identity theft.”