Novel By Harvard Student Pulled

Kaavya Viswanathan Admitted Lifting Material Weeks After Debut Novel's Release

(CBS/AP) 
"How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life" came out in March, sold moderately and was No. 96 on the Amazon.com best seller list Thursday night. She was signed to a reported six-figure deal. DreamWorks has acquired film rights.

Her novel tells the story of Opal, a hard-driving teen from New Jersey who earns straight A's in high school but is rejected from Harvard because she forgot to have a social life. Opal's father concocts a plan code-named HOWGAL (How Opal Will Get A Life) to get her past the admissions office.

McCafferty's books follow a heroine named Jessica Darling, a New Jersey girl who excels in high school but struggles with her identity and longs for a boyfriend.

Similarities to McCafferty's books, which include "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings," were first spotted by readers. They alerted McCafferty, who then notified her publisher. Crown alleges that at least 40 passages "contain identical language and/or common scene or dialogue structure."

"One of the things you learn in college, and certainly you learn in Harvard is that you don't plagiarize. And she's done that. Whether she did it consciously or unconsciously, whether she was sort of led to it or not. It kind of doesn't matter. It puts her in a bad spot," Nelson told Solorzano.

Little, Brown has said the book will be revised as quickly as possible, but in its statement made no reference to a new edition. In its statement, Little, Brown did not say how many passages would be changed.

McCafferty, a former editor at Cosmopolitan, has a new novel out, "Charmed Thirds."

2Viswanathan's misdeeds could be blamed on inexperience, or her involvement with a book packager, 17th Street Productions, which helped her shape the story.

Some readers are understanding. "If she's guilty of anything at all, it is of being young and immature," a bookstore customer, Neeem Amaad, told CBS News.

But plagiarism is not only for the very young.

Doris Kearns Goodwin was in her 30s when she was working on "The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys" and took large blocks of text from author Lynne McTaggart. Stephen Ambrose was past 60 when caught stealing for "The Wild Blue."

And Viswanathan's fall is not necessarily fatal.

In 1980, debut author Jacob Epstein acknowledged plagiarizing Martin Amis' "The Rachel Papers" for his novel "Wild Oats." Epstein moved on to Hollywood and eventual forgiveness, his writing credits including "Hill Street Blues" and "L.A. Law."