{"id":603,"date":"2019-05-28T17:34:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T17:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.saritasarvate.com\/?p=603"},"modified":"2019-10-27T17:35:02","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T17:35:02","slug":"woman-window-publishing-industrys-moral-bankruptcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oldweb.saritasarvate.com\/?p=603","title":{"rendered":"The Woman in the Window: Publishing Industry\u2019s Moral Bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0My faith in the publishing industry began to erode the day I read Gone Girl<\/em>, a book hyped as the thriller of the century, not to mention a feminist manifesto. \u00a0With its violent, sadistic, and unbelievable narrator, was this the best American literature had to offer?<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Gone Girl<\/em> soon spawned a cottage industry of \u201cgirl\u201d thrillers with unreliable protagonists. \u00a0I even overheard an agent at a writers\u2019 conference seeking more pitches like Girl on the Train<\/em>.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0With The Woman in the Window<\/em>,which arrived in the wake of a series of \u201cwoman\u201d titles, we have reached a new low. \u00a0Written under the female sounding pseudonym A.J. Finn, the mystery is narrated by the mother of all unreliable narrators. \u00a0Penned by the real life Dan Mallory,the book has an easy-to-guess plot and over-the top language.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Take Dan Mallory\u2019s metaphors, which he uses, not to compare an action or an object to something similar, but something entirely different. \u00a0Like Donald Trump, he makes word soup. \u201cScaffolding stuck to its (a building\u2019s) fa\u00e7ade like hanging gardens.\u201d Huh? When did scaffolding ever look like a garden? \u00a0\u201cMy robe smeared across the floor like a skid mark,\u201d \u201cThoughts tumble-drying in my brain.\u201d \u00a0The off-putting metaphors are relentless.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0At the outset, critics pointed out that the book seemed to have stolen plots of several movies including Rear Window\u00a0<\/em>and Copycat<\/em>.\u00a0But by then Mallory had already secured a two-book, two-million-dollar deal and enthusiastic blurbs from Stephen King and Gillian Flynn. \u00a0Did King and Flynn actually read the book? Or did they merely return favors from industry bigwigs? Mallory himself was a business insider after all, working as an editor for his publisher William Morrow. \u00a0A million dollar movie deal naturally followed.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The public ate the hype. \u00a0Critics, insiders themselves, gave cautiously optimistic reviews. \u00a0If you read in between the lines of Janet Maslin\u2019s review in the New York Times<\/em> and Joyce Carol Oates\u2019 piece in the New Yorker<\/em>, however, you can detect veiled barbs at Mallory\u2019s staccato prose, \u201cteetering breathlessly on stiletto heels,\u201d his one-dimensional narrator, his formulaic plot, and his very predictable ending.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0As if this were not scandalous enough, the New York Times<\/em> soon broke the news that the book had been plagiarized from a mystery novel titled Saving April <\/em>written\u00a0by Sarah Denzil and published in Britain.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Not to be outdone, the New Yorker<\/em> revealed that Dan Mallory had, for decades, engaged in a trail of deception, claiming, at various times, to have received electroconvulsive therapy, taken medication for bipolar disorder, nursed his mother until her death from breast cancer, and tended to his mentally disadvantaged brother as he succumbed to cystic fibrosis. \u00a0At another time Mallory claimed that his brother had committed suicide and that he himself had a brain tumor for which he was receiving treatment. Additionally, he repeatedly and falsely claimed to have a doctorate from Oxford. A complete list of his fabrications is too long to cite here.
\nDid Mallory tell lies to get sympathy and draw attention to his book? \u00a0One can only guess. Needless to say, his brother and mother are quite alive, the latter even went traveling with him on his book tour.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The charge of plagiarism turns out to be serious as well. \u00a0After spending my hard-earned money to buy Denzil\u2019s novel and reading it side by side with The Woman in the Window<\/em> (which I borrowed from the library), I can personally vouch for the fact that the plots of the two novels match point by point. \u00a0Both have middle-aged protagonists suffering from agoraphobia. Both kill their husbands and children in car crashes while sparring with their spouses over alleged infidelities. \u00a0Afterwards, both spy on their unhappily married neighbors who have adopted teenage children with addicted birthmothers. Both suspect their neighbors\u2019 husbands to be guilty of serious crimes. \u00a0In both novels \u2013 spoiler alert – the teenagers turn out to be the psychopathic killers in the end.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In other words, we have a publishing sensation who, at worst, has plagiarized another writer\u2019s work, and at best, created a potboiler from a mishmash of stolen yarns. \u00a0The publishing sensation also happens to be a pathological liar who lacks any sense of morality or ethics.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0You might ask what the character of a writer has to do with his writing but in the age of Donald Trump, is it really okay to accept a successful professional\u2019s lies and falsehoods? \u00a0What kind of an example are we setting for society? For the younger generation?<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0But Mallory\u2019s story didn\u2019t end there. \u00a0The most appalling moment came when, appearing as a guest of honor at the Jaipur Literary Festival, Mallory publicly accused the New Yorker\u00a0<\/em>of maligning him. \u00a0Soon after, however, he was forced to admit to lying.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The episode raised another question for me. \u00a0As Indian writers, do we want to play mere sycophants to the American publishing industry? \u00a0Or do we want to put a spotlight on deserving Indian authors who are languishing in obscurity?<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0My faith in the publishing industry began to erode the day I read Gone Girl, a book hyped as the thriller of the century, not to mention a feminist manifesto. \u00a0With its violent, sadistic, and unbelievable narrator, was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,11,12,1],"tags":[224,222,223,221],"yoast_head":"\nThe Woman in the Window: Publishing Industry\u2019s Moral Bankruptcy - Sarita Sarvate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oldweb.saritasarvate.com\/?p=603\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sarita Sarvate\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oldweb.saritasarvate.com\/?p=603\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/oldweb.saritasarvate.com\/?p=603\",\"name\":\"The Woman in the Window: Publishing Industry\u2019s Moral Bankruptcy - 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