Harvard student loses book deal

There won't be any "Second Helpings" of Opal Mehta.\nFacing new allegations that the 19-year-old Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarized a host of novels in her debut book, publisher Little, Brown and Company said Tuesday it would not release a revised edition of "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life." The publisher also canceled plans for a sequel.\nCompany representatives refused to say whether the Franklin Lakes resident would have to return any of the $500,000 advance she received for the two books. Repeated calls to Viswanathan's home were not returned.\nTuesday's decision came as reports indicated Viswanathan plagiarized from several additional authors, including Salman Rushdie and a British "chick-lit" author. Last week, the Harvard sophomore admitted to "unconsciously" plagiarizing from Megan McCafferty's first two books: "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings."\nThe Harvard Crimson on Tuesday cited similarities between "Opal Mehta" and Rushdie's book, along with Meg Cabot's 2000 novel "The Princess Diaries."\nActing on a reader tip, The New York Times published allegations that passages of Viswanathan's novel resembled portions of "Can You Keep a Secret?" a 2004 release by Sophie Kinsella, the pen name of British author Madeleine Wickham.\nMcCafferty's publisher, the Crown Publishing Group, alleged it found at least 40 similarities between its best-selling author's works and "Opal Mehta." Viswanathan admitted to plagiarizing the work, saying she had read and admired McCafferty and probably internalized and unconsciously repeated portions of those books.\nInitially, Crown Publishing did not rule out legal action against the young author and her publisher.\nBut both Crown and Random House, which publishes Rushdie and Kinsella, seemed satisfied with Little, Brown's decision to pull the book permanently.\nOn Tuesday evening, the book was still selling on eBay, commanding up to $60 for each copy.\n"With Little, Brown having voluntarily withdrawn their book from the marketplace last week, the Random House Inc. authors and publishers of the books involved will not be commenting further on this matter," Random House spokesman Stuart Applebaum said.\nThe plagiarism allegations also have caused The Record to investigate roughly two dozen articles that Viswanathan wrote while a summer features intern at the newspaper in 2003 and 2004.\nA preliminary review by editors, conducted by reading and using Google searches, has not revealed any problems with her writing.\nThe Record also plans to additionally vet her articles through LexisNexis, a public records database.\n"In Kaavya's case there were no indications, no alarms, that any of her stories were made up," Editor Frank Scandale said.\nHe added that interns typically are given lighter stories with little deadline pressure - constraints very different from those Viswanathan undoubtedly labored under while trying to finish her book and carry a full course load at Harvard.\nSuch pressures may have been too much for the student, who then was 17 years old.\nThough she was a talented writer, her admitted unconscious plagiarism has led to speculation that Viswanathan might not have been ready for a book deal and was not yet capable of writing a novel.\nWhen she was given the half-million-dollar advance, Viswanathan was an untested author.\nShe had yet to complete the novel she was shopping and had worked with a book packager, Alloy Entertainment, to help develop her idea.\nIn an e-mailed statement, an Alloy spokeswoman maintained that Viswanathan did write the book.\n"Alloy helped conceptualize and plot the book," spokeswoman Jodi Smith wrote. "Kaavya wrote the book - Alloy did not."\nBut was the young author skilled enough to write a book?\nPeople who knew her writing before the book deal gave mixed answers Tuesday. Though all agreed Viswanathan was a gifted student and good writer, some said her work was still at a student's level -- too unpolished for a novel.\nDoug Clancy, an assistant managing editor at The Record who reviewed Viswanathan's work for admission into the paper's minority journalism workshop, said her essays appeared to be the work of a talented high school student, but not a novelist.\n"It was a good high school student's work," he said. "I wouldn't have thought she would be writing a book."\nSome former professors, however, said Viswanathan had enough talent to become a teenage author.\nBy her senior year of high school she had already won several prestigious writing awards, including a Silver Key Scholastic Art and Writing Award in the memoir category for a piece titled, "A Certain Slant of Light."\nOnly a few hundred students win top honors each year from among 250,000 submissions.\n"I remember that her writing and thinking at that time made her stand out from her peers," said Bill Mendelsohn, Viswanathan's ninth-grade English teacher at the Bergen County Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology --her alma mater. "If she was given the time and the direction, I do think that she could write a novel at such a young age"