BUSTED! Plagiarists, Fakers & Literary Hoaxes

[kateln]

Mar 16, 2017 13:07:40 GMT -4 addison said:

Mar 15, 2017 18:29:08 GMT -4 chonies said:

Wow. That article was pretty breathless--the book sounds kind of fishy. Not impossible but kind of too perfectly scripted.

He should have just called it a novel and it would've been fine. People look even closer at nonfiction now after all the prior hoaxes.

It kind of sounds like he was trying to be David Simon with the backstory, even though David Simon is debunking him/calling him out on bullshit. Simon wrote, in the late 80's, the bookHomicide: A Year on the Killing Streets after following a squad of Baltimore Homicide Detectives around for a year. That went on to become the show Homicide: Life on the Street. In the 90's, he and his writing partner Ed Burns, spent a year getting to know drug dealers in Baltimore, and wrote the book The Corner which became a mini-series on HBO. THEN he went to write stuff like The Wire, Treme, and Show Me a Hero.

Baltimore, while very charming in a lot of ways, does have a high crime rate and literally 10 blocks from the famous inner harbor there are open air drug markets, and some projects. I lived there in college, go visit there often, and the neighborhood I was in, Charles Village border Guilford/Roland Park/Johns Hopkins on one side, and Waverly (not so great) on the other. He could have done some great True Crime work there, if he'd put in the effort. Or taken this as inspiration and written a novel "based on true events".

[seat6]

Has anyone read The Girls by Emma Cline? I have not, and I hadn't even heard of it, though it evidently made a big splash. The novel sold for seven figure and the movie rights were purchased by Scott Rudin. The novel was well received and won or was shortlisted for several awards.

So of course, because a young women has achieved success, her douchey ex-boyfriend has to ruin everything for her, or that's what I gather from the news accounts.

This is my understanding of the situation. Emma Cline and her ex-boyfriend, Chaz Reetz-Laiolo, had an acrimonious break up. He is also a writer, though not nearly as successful. Also somewhat important to the story is that they started dating when she was 20 and he was 33.

She had a computer that she had installed spyware on. She sold the computer to him. He now alleges that she plagiarized his work, using the spyware on her old computer. She says she installed the spyware on her computer because he would sometimes use it and he was a cheating, abusive jerk and she wanted to document his infidelity.

Reetz-Laiolo has hired the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, which is the SAME law firm that Harvey Weinstein hired to arrange spies to befriend Rose McGowan and reporters Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, and Ronan Farrow.

Cline received documents from the law firm that included an section entitled "Cline’s History of Manipulating Older Men." The section included sexually explicit photos of her and texts she had exchanged with other men. (I think he got these from her old computer).

I'm really stunned by this lawsuit, because I think there could probably be reason to have a section entitled "[Insert Any Woman's Name Here]'s History of Manipulating Older Men." And by that I mean if any women has dated or flirted with any man that might have a few years on her.

I also googled the guy and I have decided he looks like he's mean. (Sorry, that link goes to the Daily Fail). He originally wanted $2 billion in damages!

Forbes has an article with more details.

The New Yorker has a good summary.

I think I know which novel I will nominate for my next book club selection. And I'm going to purchase it at the independent bookstore for full price.

[chonies]

[psst--your "he looks mean" link loops to this page]

That said, holy smokes--this is outrageous and fascinating.

[mrspickles]

His name is Chaz, so my expectation is that he's a giant tool bag.

[Deleted]

As someone on Twitter wrote, gee who could have written that sensitive coming of age story of a teenage girl. The author who has written several similar stories or the man who hired Harvey Weinstein's lawyer? When all the harassment stuff in Holywood first started coming out Cline had written about the harassment she faced in the book industry and an ex boyfriend physically and emotionally abusing her. Clearly she was talking about him.

Its disgusting that this case has been able to drag on. The examples of plagiarism he gives are minimal and often just common phrases. This is just a way for an abuser to keep abusing his victim. NYT has an article on this and this statement by Cline is so sad.

My only experience of publishing a novel has been one where I am under acute attack, with my sexual history weaponized against me by a cadre of male lawyers. I’ll never be able to get back the years I’ve now spent responding to an ex-boyfriend’s baseless legal assaults and ludicrous, billion-dollar claims instead of writing another book. That’s a loss I don’t know how to fully comprehend.

[addison]

Dec 3, 2017 20:31:56 GMT -4 seat6 said:

Has anyone read The Girls by Emma Cline? I have not, and I hadn't even heard of it, though it evidently made a big splash. The novel sold for seven figure and the movie rights were purchased by Scott Rudin. The novel was well received and won or was shortlisted for several awards.

Cline received documents from the law firm that included an section entitled "Cline’s History of Manipulating Older Men." The section included sexually explicit photos of her and texts she had exchanged with other men. (I think he got these from her old computer).

This is so outrageous. I'm sure she regrets every day selling him that stupid laptop since it has haunted her ever since. Based on this and the Weinstein stuff, that Boies Schiller law firm is awful. They were just blackmailing her with that whole "history of manipulating older men" - which would have been bad in any circumstances, but with everything going on today, is even more offensive. They were hoping for a quick payoff so they could take the money and run. I feel bad for her having to deal with all this. Chaz sounds like a major loser and I can't believe this bigtime law firm is lowering itself to this type of thing - the sexually explicit photos are way over the line.

[ladyboy]

Off topic, I found The Girls to be kind of whatever. This 'scandal' is much more interesting.

[chiqui]

There's a new scandal brewing, this time in the rarified world of M/M romance. Gay male author Santino Hassell has been exposed as the joint creation of a husband-wife writing team. The wife, Alicia Hassell, did the writing, the husband, Marvin Hassell, served as the physical persona. A Patron account soliciting money for non-existent cancer treatments was also involved. Details here as they unfold.

[chonies]

Mar 13, 2018 1:14:25 GMT -4 chiqui said:

There's a new scandal brewing, this time in the rarified world of M/M romance. Gay male author Santino Hassell has been exposed as the joint creation of a husband-wife writing team. The wife, Alicia Hassell, did the writing, the husband, Marvin Hassell, served as the physical persona. A Patron account soliciting money for non-existent cancer treatments was also involved. Details here as they unfold.

Someone just told me about this! She is a huge reader of M/M romance and the attached twittersphere and was pretty crushed to learn about this.

[seat6]

Have you ever visited another city and picked up the alternative weekly and been completely bemused by the band names and hot restaurants? I love to do this. "Oh, look, Oscar's Garbage Can is playing tonight at Jax's Shack."

That's how I feel reading about that M/M scandal. I can tell it is terribly important, but I have NO idea what anyone is talking about, even though the synopsis was clearly written.

I gather that this Marvin character is rather unsavory and that his wife Alicia has aided and abetted him. And anyone who fakes cancer for money is a scumbag.