Comments on: Plagiarism

By: The Bureauista

The Bureauista — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:07:00 +0000

Tim: I’m going to make a confession now. I bought Jordan’s first autobiography when it came out, and enjoyed it. I didn’t find out it had been ghostwritten until some years later, and I was irked because I’d been impressed by her writing abilities. She may be upfront about it in the press, but she isn’t upfront about it on the covers of her books, and I wonder how many other people have been hoodwinked in the same way I was.

Ms Foot: God, I’d forgotten about the root canal description; talk about visceral. I came to the book after the whole furore, so I suppose I never had the opportunity to feel let down by the deception. I wonder what I’d have done in his shoes: fess up to the lies once the book started to get popular, or just run with it and pray that no one found out the truth.

By: Madfoot

Madfoot — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:48:00 +0000

i see your point, but Frey still went beyond a little fudging of anecdotes… he invented a whole girlfriend, complete with suicide, and said he had root canal without so much as a shot of novacane, then lapped up praise from people who got phrases from his book tattooed on their forearms. I’d say that bumps him up from mugger to, mmm, corporate embezzler at least.

By: Tim Footman

Tim Footman — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:33:00 +0000

To be fair to Jordan (not something that comes easily), she’s quite open about the fact that her own fingers have never come within 10 yards of the keyboard; all she provides is the brand identity.

I have a sneaking sort of admiration for ghosts who take on tasks like this (Hunter Davis doing Wayne Rooney is another one). They have to impose a certain level of coherence and literacy to the text; but they still have to communicate the essential inarticulate crassness of their clients, to make the thing gel with the public’s perception.