Courtesy of Gawker, that heartbreaking bitch. Well, what can you expect from a New Yorker, eh?
Brief recap of the Fake Writer Roundup.
Exhibit A:
JT LeRoy, the young, mixed-up transexual addict who used to be a lot lizard (truck stop child hooker).
Not so much, on all counts.
Middle-aged, crafty, straight, married mundane with a perfectly respectable past and a nice, clean apartment in a good part of town. Which was part of the problem. So, whachagonnado? Ya hire your sister-in-law for appearances, put her in a fright wig and CNIB shades, and have her sleep with Asia Argento: bingo, instant wunderkind.
Exhibit B:
James Frey, ex-con, hardened, hard-living addict who found salvation in a sometimes-brutal honesty and acceptance of personal responsibility.
Not. So. Much.
James Frey, coddled, middle-class boy who has been pulled over for drunk driving a coupla times and may once have prank called an ex-girlfriend.
So now we come to Exhibit C:
Kaavya Viswanathan, wholesome, overachieving valedictorian and current Ivy Leaguer and literary wunderkind, every Indian parents' dream daughter.
Not. So. Fast.
Kaavya Viswanathan, not the first young woman to be used by older, wiser publishers looking for a marketing hook. Now, she probably didn't write all of her new book; that much is clear. If she did, she stole, either deliberately or under the influence of the ghost of George Harrison, a dozen or so significant sections. And it's a given that big publishers sometimes pick, almost at random, somebody to give a huge career to simply because they need personalities to market, and if their outstanding characteristic is nothing more than their marketability, surely much the same can be said of half of Manhattan. But I encourage you to read the whole of this analysis by Gawker Intern Neel Shah, both because it's a thoughtful overview with particular reflection on the cultural pressures shared by both Shah and Viswanathan, and also because Shah is really, really hot.
And going to the transcripts:
Whatever dubious subcontinental wunderkind Kaavya Viswanathan did write, didn’t write, had ghost-written, cribbed, subconsciously borrowed, telepathically stole, or else was brainwashed into doing by a bunch of Pakistanis hell-bent on subverting India’s credibility in the burgeoning Southeast Asian chick-lit genre, at least one thing is clear: shit like this is the reason brown kids should stick to quantitative math and organic chemistry. Ms. Viswanathan, after all, had all the hallmarks of future i-banker or doctor.
etc, etc.
community activist of singular influence whose classic “The Death and Life of Great American Cities'' transformed ideas about urban planning, died Tuesday, her publisher said. She was 89.
Like many humanoids, I have several friends who use the expression "shit-eating grin" on a regular basis. Probably more than they use their shit-eating grin muscles. And, unfortunately, like most of the world, they're using it wrong.
raincoaster 