Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Paul Tolme, who wrote the original article on ferrets for Defenders Magazine, responds with an article about his work and his reaction to seeing his writing elsewhere in Newsweek magazine:

[T]hat is some bad dialogue. It stands out as clunky and awkward even by the standards of romance novels. That’s because Edwards didn’t write it. I did.

I traveled to South Dakota in the spring of 2005, flying into Rapid City airport, renting a car and driving to Wall, where I checked into a dumpy motel overlooking an industrial yard. It was as unromantic a location as you could imagine....

From dusk until nearly dawn we sat in Livieri’s truck—two dudes looking for weasels. Nobody said science was sexy.

After three days in Wall, where the highlight is visiting the famous Wall Drug Store, I could hardly leave town fast enough. I returned home and wrote the story for the Summer 2005 issue of Defenders magazine, which detailed how ferrets in the Conata Basin were being threatened by a federal effort to poison prairie dogs.

Had I known that my text would one day appear in a romance novel, I might have sexed up my story: “Hot-loving polecats do it in prairie dog holes.” Instead, here’s the passage where I detail the life history of black-footed ferrets. You may recognize it.

I do wish Tolme hadn’t dismissed the Edwards novel as “standard romance-novel shlock.” That particular prose may be shlock in his opinion, but it’s not standard for romance novels. But you and I both know that.

For more information about Black Footed Ferret conservation efforts, visit the Black Footed Ferret Recovery effort site. Hat tip to Ishie, who dropped the link in a comment thread.

In an updated AP article covering the Cassie Edwards story, the editor of Defenders Magazine, Mark Cheater, is quoted:

One example cited by the romance Web site compares a description of black-footed ferrets in “Shadow Bear,” which came out last year, with similar text from a 2005 article in Defenders Magazine, a quarterly published by Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation organization.

“I’m glad that our magazine has inspired others to write about endangered wildlife,” Defenders editor Mark Cheater said in a statement Friday. “But I’d like to note that our articles are copyrighted, and those who wish to re-use parts or all of these stories need to seek permission first.”

Thanks to Nikki, who posted the following in the comments of our previous entry, we have the text of what is allegedly a response from Cassie Edwards issued via her MySpace account:

————————— Original Message
From: Cassie Edwards
Date: Jan 11, 2008 11:58 AM

Hi, Lisa,
I just got on My Space and I found your wonderful encouraging letter. Thank you for believing in me, for I have done nothing wrong. My publisher is standing behind me 100%, for they know my work better than anyone, and they know that all romance authors who use research for historicals have to use reference books to do this. My readers love this accurate material about the Indians. And if I couldn’t use this material my books would not be worth anything to my readers who depend on me.

The sad thing is that I am writing these books now in a way to honor our Native Americans, past, present and in the future. And I am honoring my great grandmother who was a full blood Cheyenne. She would be so proud of me if she could read what I am writing about the Indians who have been so maligned for so long. And do you know? I feel picked on now as our Native American Indians have always been picked on throughout history. I am trying to spread the word about them and what do I get? Spiteful women who have found a way to bring attention to themselves, by getting in the media in this horrible way.

Right now I am getting hit from all sides....CNN, The New York Times, AP, everyone who those women could think of to contact. And what is also sad is that a fellow author, has spoken up and condemned me.

Thanks again for your support. When I am feeling stronger I plan to write a bulletin on My Space, but right now I am totally drained of energy from what has been done to me. I hope that you will tell your friends, who are so much also mine, the wrong that has been done to me, and tell them that I will get through this. I will be found innocent and vendicated of any wrong.

For now, it’s all too raw and horrible, but I will be alright.
Love, Cassie

---

Update! Thanks to Raj and Gemma, I now have included more complete quotes from Laughing Boy. The table below has been updated accordingly. All Hail Amazon.com Previews!

When Amy, one of our readers, contacted us and volunteered to check some Cassie Edwards novels for us, I said “Sure!” and expected more examples that have been typical to the pattern: passages lifted from old ethnographies or Native American memoirs, with scattered instances of wildlife articles from conservation organizations or encyclopedias. Several other readers have volunteered to look at various Cassie Edwards novels, and I was going to compile these instances into the PDF I’d created to document everything, and update the PDF without creating any new posts, because really, we’ve made our point: the instances are widespread and egregious, and people who aren’t interested in tracking this closely don’t need to have their faces rubbed with blow-by-blow updates.

What I didn’t expect in my inbox last night was a comparison from Amy detailing the similarities between passages in Savage Dream and Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge.

Laughing Boy, unlike the other works, is not an ethnography, academic book or memoir. Laughing Boy is not only still under copyright, it is a fictional novel published in 1929, winning the Pulitzer in 1930.

This, in my opinion, drives the sheer wrongness of what happened to new heights. Using passages, word-for-word, of research material still isn’t a good thing by a long shot, but I can understand somebody being confused about the protocols of how much to acknowledge in a work of fiction. Using descriptive passages from another work of fiction, however, changes the tenor entirely. I talked to Sarah about posting this--I was very leery of driving the point into the ground when it’s been made with ample clarity--and we both agreed it was a different thing than the multitudes of other instances we’ve found, and that this deserved its own post.

Below is the table Amy compiled, comparing Savage Dream with Laughing Boy. I’m not bothering to include the reference works used in Savage Dream; I’ll be updating the PDF in a few hours and you can just look at that. I want to focus on the fact that this particular instances involves a work of fiction, and how it changes the tenor of the situation in a fundamental way.

Throughout the whole Cassie Edwards internetasplosion, Candy and I have been accused of enjoying this. Nope, not really. It’s, no pun intended, serious business what we did.

But I have to admit, I’ve just had a huge giggle of glee: following the NY Times article, my mother in law looked up this here site and called Hubby with ALL kinds of questions about it. The highlight?

Hearing Hubby explain to my mother in law what “OMGWTFBBQ” is. That was one of the funniest conversations I’ve ever heard. And no, I don’t think she gets it.

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