Archived post: This article was published more than one year ago.
External links may have been removed to prevent outdated or broken resources.
Generation Xerox. Youth may not be an excuse for plagiarism. But it is an explanation. And then there’s Kaavya herself. All the reasons an unknown girl got such a large advance for a slight novel—her promotability: extreme youth, voguish ethnicity, good looks, public poise, and Harvard imprimatur, as well as the book’s autobiographical verisimilitude—are the same reasons her downfall is so riveting. The story also has a crossover appeal, pleasing both young people envious of their mega-successful peer and older people who enjoy imputing moral inferiority and too-clever-by-half stupidity to the younger generation.
