Steal this book, too.
YALE STUDENT
COPIES NOVEL
By Charles Van Doren
Education Editor with additional reporting by
Nollie Tangere '02
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Always trying to catch up to their Cambridge peers, Yale students can now boast their own undergraduate plagiarist: 19-year-old Miranda Rich '07 of Manhattan, who has been accused of cribbing vast portions of her novel, How Nancy Drew Got Kissed by Frank Hardy and Got Into Yale.
Yale author Miranda Rich '07, shown relaxing on the New Haven Green before the allegations of plagiarism surfaced.
The Calhoun College junior had until recently been the toast of the bullet-riddled streets of New Haven for her book, for which she received a purported $500,000 advance from her publisher, Schlox Publications.
The novel recounts the story of a rich blonde Manhattanite who attends "Brapin," an exclusive prep school, and gets into Yale by solving a mystery involving an old clock. Implausibly enough, she tootles around the city interviewing witnesses and examining clues in her red roadster, a gift from her absent but doting father. In the course of solving a mystery, she meets her first true love, handsome fellow detective Frank Hardy.
Unusually for the genre, the book ends on a bittersweet note when Drew decides she has to forsake Hardy because he was not admitted to an Ivy League college.
The book had been praised by Publishers' Weekly as a "sure-fire bestseller in the burgeoning teen Ivy League chick-lit market." PW also reported that Schlox Pictures was about to option the novel for another $500,000, believing it to be a perfect vehicle for Lindsay Lohan or, with some slight reworking, the Olsen Twins.
The authoress, who has been seen clubbing her nights away in Manhattan since achieving literary success, had told her friends that the book had been her "admission ticket" to Yale. She said that she had discussed the idea for the book with her college admissions consultant, Schlox College Prep, who, for $50,000, worked with her on getting the book ready for publication. However, a mouthpiece for Schlox College Prep says that "Miranda was an extremely gifted writer and we are sure that she wrote down [Surely, wrote? – Ed.] every word."
The allegations first surfaced in a series of anonymous web postings comparing whole chapters from Rich's book to identical language in the well-known Nancy Drew detective series. The only changes observed involved moving the action from Drew's home town of River Heights to surroundings presumably more familiar to Rich, including Fifth Avenue, the Hamptons, and Bergdorf Goodman.
The author, reached for comment emerging from Marquee at 4 a.m. Saturday night on the arm of a young man who identified himself as a member of the posse of butt-shot rapper Jamal (Gravy) Woolard, said "Ohmigod, what a coincidence!"
Later her publicists at Schlox Public Relations put out a statement saying that Rich had always "admired" the Nancy Drew mysteries and may have "unconsciously borrowed" certain aspects of the popular series. However. the mouthpiece stressed that any copying was "inadvertent," and blamed the pressure on any Yale undergraduate attempting to write a novel while carrying a full course load and partying all night in New York City.
Interviewed on Schlox News's Morning Jive, Schlox Publications Editor-in-Chief Louisa Reynaud pronounced herself "shocked, shocked" by the accusations, and said the book would continue to be sold.
The Yale administration has taken no decision whether to sanction Rich for her plagiarism. However, English Professor Harold Bloom has summoned Rich to a "private dinner" at his house to "achieve closure on this matter."
Reaction to Rich's cut-and-past job was mixed. Yale Senior Hannah Rexia '06 said that she understood the pressure to get into Yale. "It's like such an intense thing and there's so much pressure on us that you can't really blame anyone for stuff like this. I mean, like who wants to spend four years at the University of Connecticut?"
But her friend Aiden Noydal '06 was less sympathetic: "Get real, she just stole someone else's work. And she's a total stuck-up bitch anyway."
Rexia turned to her companion and snarled: "That's such an immature thing to say. I mean, it's not like she killed anyone."
Some literary lions were equally sympathetic. "I'm sure she didn't mean to copy entire chapters verbatim from the Nancy Drew series," commented well-known historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. "I'm sure she just got a little busy and forgetful. It could happen to anyone."
Volume CCXXXVI, Number 124 May 3, 2006
