How 'Opal Mehta' got shelved

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- At 19, Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan seemed to have it all: beauty, brains and money, thanks to a sizable six-figure deal to write two novels.

Her first book -- the winsome, semi-autobiographical How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, about an Indian-American girl trying to get into Harvard -- hit stores at the end of March. There were good reviews and a profile in The New York Times.

And then it all fell apart as The Harvard Crimson revealed striking similarities between passages in Opal Mehta and two novels by Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings.

Now the former golden girl is at the center of a rapidly unfolding plagiarism scandal, the latest blow for a publishing industry still reeling from James Frey's admission that he fabricated much of his best-selling memoir A Million Little Pieces.

For those who know Viswanathan, there are more questions than answers.

"It's hard to believe she sat down and copied from other books," says Andrew Dietrich, 20, of Kansas City, Mo., who resides in Kirkland House, Viswanathan's Edwardian-style Harvard dorm. "I feel sorry for her. She has always been very friendly."

The young author has not been heard from publicly since the last week in April, when she said that she unconsciously and unintentionally borrowed from McCafferty's books, and endured an uncomfortable grilling by Katie Couric on NBC's Today show.

Since then, her troubles have mounted as she has been accused of also cribbing from author Sophie Kinsella. Viswanathan's publisher, Little, Brown, has pulled Opal Mehta from stores and canceled the contract for her second book. Her movie deal with DreamWorks is in doubt. The Record of Bergen County, N.J., is investigating stories that she wrote as a high school intern. And because Viswanathan had a joint contract with a book packaging company, there have been questions about how much help she had in writing Opal Mehta.

Neither Viswanathan nor her parents have returned repeated phone or e-mail messages.

It's not even clear where Viswanathan is. There were reported sightings of her last week on campus, but Harvard won't say whether she's at school. Neighbors say it appears no one has been home in a week at her parents' house in suburban New Jersey.

Chatter at Harvard

As spring semester winds to a close on Harvard's campus, the disgraced sophomore is generating as much chatter as are final exams and summer internships.

Many students express sorrow for Viswanathan, saying her actions appear as naive as the book-smart but clueless protagonist of her novel.

Deena Shakir, a sophomore who befriended Viswanathan during their freshman year, describes the daughter of Indian immigrants as unassuming and outgoing. "She's intelligent and mature beyond her age," says the 20-year-old from San Jose, Calif. "You could tell she'd been brought up by parents who taught her well."

Yet there's also ample disdain. Some students believe Viswanathan was caught short-stepping a calculated effort to parlay her Harvard status into the latest hot young "chick lit" novelist. Some also worry the incident could seriously sully Harvard's reputation.

Moreover, at a school where super overachievers are the norm, jealousy over Opal's release has given way to considerable schadenfreude over Viswanathan's troubles. "Most people who have judged her think she's guilty," says YiDing Yu, 21, a junior and economics major from Orlando. "The evidence is pretty condemning."

Debate continues in the Crimson, the school newspaper, which broke the story in April after receiving a tip. Normally, the Crimson's website receives about 60,000 daily page views; it's now getting 200,000. Online bloggers continue to hotly debate what, if anything, should be done about Viswanathan.

"The fact that she's a Harvard student has made this a big story," says Crimson president William Marra, 20. "People are split. Some say she should be kicked out. Others say she's just a young girl and Harvard should be lenient."

In many ways, Viswanathan's life has mirrored that of Opal Mehta, the protagonist in her novel.

An only child, Kaavya was born in Chennai, India, and lived in Scotland until middle school, when she moved to the USA with her parents, Viswanathan Rajaraman, a neurosurgeon, and Mary Sundaram, a former physician. The family resides in a two-story colonial with a three-car garage on a quiet cul-de-sac in Franklin Lakes, N.J., about 30 miles west of Manhattan. The affluent community had a 2005 median income of $148,268 and median home sales price of $985,000. Late last week, neither parent appeared to be home. Newspapers remained in the driveway, and three FedEx delivery slips hung from the front door.

Outside the Starbucks near the Viswanathans' home, Julia Stern, 17, a junior at nearby Ramapo High School, said that while she was surprised by Viswanathan's actions, "there is so much pressure here that I do see why someone would do this."

Stern's classmate Chris Lane, who's writing a class paper about Shakespeare and plagiarism, is incorporating Viswanathan's story into it. Students are talking about the scandal, he says.

"Around here you've got to be smart, and people around here know how to manipulate," says Lane, 17. "They do whatever it takes to get what they want. (Viswanathan) went to an extreme, I guess."

But Viswanathan has said in interviews that her parents did not put as much pressure on her as Opal's parents do in the novel. "They've always been very good about not putting pressure on me," she told The New York Times. "I mean, I adore them."

Viswanthan planned to become an investment banker after graduating Harvard in 2008. But that was before she signed her publishing deal (reported to be as high as $500,000, although Little, Brown says it was far less) at 17. Writing, however, has been important to Viswanathan. She was editor in chief of the paper at her high school, The Bergen County Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology, in Hackensack, N.J. She had two summer internships at the Record -- one before her junior year in 2003 and one before she was a senior.

"She certainly impressed us as a bright, talented and lovely young woman -- much more mature than some of the college students we've seen," says Barbara Jaeger, assistant managing editor/features. Viswanathan was "very quiet, but once you got to know her, she had a wonderful sense of humor."

Jaeger wrote a college recommendation for Viswanathan, who showed her her school transcripts. "There was nothing less than (an) A, and she had outstanding college board scores," Jaeger says. "And there was also a small note that her novel was being shopped around by (talent agent) William Morris."

Viswanathan graduated from the Bergen County school in 2004. But according to school spokeswoman Donna Todd, "Confidentiality laws prohibit us from disclosing any details about Ms. Viswanathan or her academic history without her written consent. The fact that Kaavya was accepted to Harvard speaks to her academic background. Many staff members and students would undoubtedly like to comment about Kaavya and share their experiences and perspectives, but are prevented from doing so by confidentiality laws."

While she was in high school, the Viswanathans contracted with IvyWise, a private counseling service that helps prepare teens for college. IvyWise founder Katherine Cohen, who was speaking to the media before the plagiarism accusations became public, did not respond to a request for an interview last week.

But via e-mail, she said: "In providing educational counseling to Kaavya Viswanathan, who aspired to and gained admission to Harvard, I saw an extremely bright and extraordinarily gifted 16-year-old with a talent for writing. ... I don't believe that the Kaavya I know would ever wantonly or willingly copy someone else's work with the deliberate intent to deceive others."

It's not clear whether this is the end of the Opal Mehta story. Although it seems as if the silent Viswanathan just wants it all to go away, the scandal is still resounding in publishing circles.

'Embarrassment for publisher'

From a PR standpoint, Viswanathan's situation is more of an "embarrassment for the publisher than for all of publishing," says Lorraine Shanley, former editorial director at HarperCollins, now a publishing consultant at Market Partners International. "With 195,000 books published each year, it's amazing it doesn't happen more often."

Peter Osnos, founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs, says it's difficult to compare Viswanathan with Frey. "Frey was a fantasist who was making things up that could have been caught," Osnos says. Viswanathan is an "immature and misguided teenager who got swept up in a race she wasn't ready for."

Some see an upside to the attention Viswanathan has drawn.

"We live in an era where all the lines are blurred," says Morgan Entrekin, publisher of Grove/Atlantic. "It's good for young people to see that stealing intellectual property or infringing copyright is wrong. It's theft. It's not cool. I feel sorry for the young woman, but some good could come out of her problems."

Contributing: Olivia Barker and Mary Pilon from Franklin Lakes, N.J.; Carol Memmott from McLean, Va.; Bob Minzesheimer from New York

To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com

© Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.