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WRITERS BEHAVING BADLY
How Nasty Can Book Publishing Get?
What the hit novel ‘Yellowface’ gets right — and wrong — about authors, editors, and publishers who play dirty
What’s the easiest way to succeed as an author?
A half dozen recent novels say: Steal.
Lift someone’s plot, ideas, or — why not? — an entire book.
It works — until you get caught, or the internet trolls come after you, or your life is threatened by a crazed psychopath who knows what you did and wants you to pay for it. Big time.
Novels about authors who try to soar on stolen wings have boomed in the past few years. Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot has a teacher who steals a student’s plot. Alexandra Andrews’ Who Is Maud Dixon? involves a conniving editorial assistant. Chris Power’s Lonely Man centers on a blocked writer who steals a friend’s story.
Those are only some of the best-known examples of the trend, and there are enough others that by now the writers-behaving-badly subgenre may look tired, if not clichéd, to editors.
If you want to make a splash, you need to give the subject a fresh coat of paint. Let’s say, a yellow one.
