Cautionary Tales

It is not my intent to deny anyone the rewards of our craft by frightening them away from writing creatively. But, before I turn my attention to strategies which can help a new author write responsibly, and ethically, I feel compelled to pass along a few ‘cautionary tales’ — high-profile examples of individuals who found themselves in sticky situations because (not unlike my experience with Kalyna’s Song) they didn’t think through, carefully enough, decisions related to their work.

Intertextuality. In 2001, Canadian author Yann Martel published Life of Pi to critical acclaim. The novel features an Indian teenager, Piscine (“Pi”) Molitor Patel, stranded on a lifeboat for 227 days with a Bengal tiger. He finds himself lost at sea after the ship (which is carrying Pi, his family, and numerous zoo animals on their immigration journey to Canada) sinks. The book has been a bestseller, translated into at least 40 languages, and awarded the coveted Man Booker Prize for Fiction. The 2012 film adaptation of Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee, swept the Oscars in 2013 with 11 nominations and four wins. Fellow Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, in her enthusiastic endorsement of Martel’s novel, describes the story as “terrific” (I concur) — though her praise verges on the contradictory in that she sees Life of Pi as “fresh” and “original” while also remarking on its “noteworthy ancestors,” including Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, the Ancient Mariner, and Moby Dick.

None of these “ancestral” influences caused problems for Martel but one more direct “intertext” most certainly did. Controversy broke out, in 2002, when Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar publicly identified similarities between his Portuguese-language book — Max and the Cats is its title in English — and Life of Pi (“Booker Winner in Plagiarism Row”). In Scliar’s work, a young man, Max, escaping Nazi Germany, also survives a disaster at sea, drifting on the open ocean in a small craft with a jaguar. Are the parallels coincidental? No. But neither is the relationship between Life of Pi and Max and the Cats a clear-cut case of plagiarism. After all, in the fictional “Author’s Note” which prefaces Martel’s novel (narrated by Pi himself), Martel’s fictional author mentions Scliar by name, acknowledging that his story “owe[s]” its “spark of life” to “Mr. Moacyr Scliar” (x). Martel, via his fictional author, does not hide his intertextual debt to Max and the Cats.

Scliar, quite generously, said that “[i]n a certain way I feel flattered that another writer considered my idea to be so good, but on the other hand, [Martel] used that idea without consulting me or even informing me. An idea is intellectual property” (“Booker Winner In Plagiarism Row,” my emphasis). Thankfully, for Martel, Scliar and his publisher ultimately chose not to sue. “I am not litigious,” said Scilar, and “I am not going to make this a crusade” (“Booker Winner In Plagiarism Row”). Martel, for his part, admitted that he had read a review of Scliar’s work, but not the work itself: “I didn’t really want to read it,” he said. “Why put up with the gall? Why put up with a brilliant premise ruined by a lesser writer?” (“Booker Winner In Plagiarism Row”). Conceding that he “saw a premise that [he] liked and [that he] told [his] own story with it,” Martel nonetheless stated that he had done nothing “dishonest” (“Booker Winner In Plagiarism Row”). Intertextuality saved Martel from a legal battle. He might have been, however, more charitable toward Scliar. The “lesser writer,” in this instance, was arguably the bigger person.

Appropriation. Decades before cultural appropriation became the subject of public and scholarly debate, Archibald Belaney (1888-1938) did what seems, now, unthinkable: Though English (he was born in England and moved to Canada at 17), he passed himself off as the son of a Scottish father and an Apache mother. The name that he gave himself was “Grey Owl.” During his lifetime, he published articles and books under that name, gaining considerable popularity as a writer and a conservationist. Only after his death was his actual identity uncovered, earning him a place in history as one of Canada’s most famous hoaxsters.

Belaney might be seen as an anomalous chapter in Canada’s distant past except for several recent, very public scandals — involving celebrated novelist Joseph Boyden and Michelle Latimer, actress, writer, and filmmaker — which highlight the persistence of (possible) mis-identification in our time and place. Boyden and Latimer, both, have been taken to task for claiming, respectively, to be Mi’kmaq/Métis/Nipmuc/Ojibway and Algonquin/Métis, given that there may not be evidence to support the legitimacy of their claims.^[1]

I’m not in a position, here, to weigh in on whether or not Boyden and/or Latimer have been unjustly accused of appropriation. It’s beyond the scope of this chapter for me to address details. I will say, however, that these instances of alleged appropriation foreground the importance of honesty and ethical self-representation. The “borrowing” of cultural information from groups other than one’s own is troubling enough. Asserting questionable — or, worse, entirely illegitimate — subject positions for the purposes of fame or financial gain may be viewed as the most egregious acts of appropriation.

Truth claims. When A Million Little Pieces (2003) caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey, its author, James Frey, might as well have won the lottery. It was Winfrey’s kind of book: the real, raw, and inspirational story of a troubled man who struggled with addiction before turning his life around. In 2005, Winfrey recommended the book to her fans and, in doing so, made it a bestseller, many times over. Frey couldn’t have asked for better marketing. He was invited onto the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005. A Million Little Pieces became an overnight sensation.

Frey’s fall from grace, however, happened just as swiftly and publicly after he was “outed” for fabricating portions of his memoir. Once it came to light that Frey, in fact, had neither spent long periods of time incarcerated nor endured the loss of a friend by suicide, Winfrey made plain her disappointment. Frey appeared on her show again, in 2006, where he endured public shaming while attempting to explain and apologize. Frey seemed to have lost the trust of Winfrey and innumerable other readers who — not unreasonably — felt betrayed by his decision to embellish and outright lie about parts of his ostensibly “true” story. In an unprecedented move by a publisher, Random House offered refunds to offended readers.

Then, in a telling commentary on the importance of how we label/categorize literary texts, A Million Little Pieces was rebranded as “fiction.” Problem solved! In 2018, Frey’s book was turned into a film, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, suggesting that “no press is bad press.” Readers forgave Frey, it seems, Winfrey included, who stated (on Larry King Live) that “the controversy was ‘much ado about nothing’ and urged readers inspired by the book to ‘keep holding on.’” As Winfrey explained, “[w]hat is relevant is that [Frey] was a drug addict … and stepped out of that history to be the man he is today and to take that message to save other people and allow them to save themselves” (“Oprah Defends Frey’s Memoir”). This was, to my mind, the happiest outcome possible for an author who, from the get-go, should have been more honest about the “truth claims” of his book and who has been considerably lucky that the scandal, far from ruining his career, ensured its (his) success.