Is Jerry Seinfeld the Shit of the Year?

I've mentioned it a couple of times, but one of the biggest publishing scandals of 2007 was Jessica Seinfeld shamelessly ripping off another author's book - and getting a big thumbs up to do it from publisher HarperCollins.

Jessica's book, Deceptively Delicious, was hailed as a cookery masterpiece. An inspiring work, it revealed secrets to cram as much nutrition into kid's food as possible - by including spinach in brownie recipes, for example, or mixing sweet potato into grilled cheese sandwiches.

Jessica Seinfeld, who is the wife of famous New York comedian Jerry Seinfeld, used his savvy media connections to get an endorsement from no less than Oprah Winfrey herself - the woman who reads books so American book-buyers don't have to.

HarperCollins did a great job promoting the book, which zoomed up to #1 on the Amazon charts, #1 in the New York Times and #2 with USA Today - all within a week of the publication date.

But that's where things started to get sticky.

Somebody pointed out that an earlier book - Missy Chase Lapine's The Sneaky Chef - contained some similar recipes to Deceptively Delicious. Some very similar recipes, in fact. 15 of them, copied so closely from Lapine's that one of them only differs by use of the word 'simple' in place of 'sneaky.'

But the plot thickens... (like butternut puree)

Missy Chase Lapine's book, published a month earlier than Jessica Seinfeld's, has an identical concept to the better selling Deceptively Delicious. How to include more fruit and vegetables in a child's diet through use of 'sneaky' (or as Jessica might call it, 'deceptive') means.

The fact that the concept and execution is so similar to Seinfeld's book becomes even more suspicious when it emerged that Missy Chase Lapine had actually submitted her manuscript to Harper Collins long before Jessica Seinfeld appeared on scene.

She submitted a 139-page book proposal with 31 recipes to HarperCollins in February 2006 - and in a crazy 'coincidence,' it was 15 of those recipes that ended up between the pages of Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious.

Ironic, considering that HarperCollins passed on Lapine's book proposal not once, but twice in the summer of 2006.

Big Name = Big Sales

Or maybe it's not ironic or coincidental at all. Maybe it's all as horribly obvious and cynical as it all sounds. HarperCollins saw a brilliant idea for a book, but thought that Miss Chase Lapine's name just didn't have enough 'clout' to deliver the sales they so desperately needed.

"Seinfeld is a big name and it garners more attention than someone who doesn't have a big name," Lapine considered. "The important fact is that they had access to my manuscript early on and at least 15 of my recipes ended up in her book."

Whatever way you look at it, the picture is not pretty. In May 2006, HarperCollins rejected Missy's book proposal for the second time. Just one month later, they signed Jessica Seinfeld to write a similar book that ultimately includes large sections of somebody else's work.

The Scandal Continues...

There are two things that make this whole situation so disgusting.

First off, the behaviour of HarperCollins. Their decision to 'can' a less famous author in favour of a 'big name' is indicative of everything that's wrong with the modern publishing industry. Talent and originality have been superseded by an industry that refuses to publish something that isn't the next Harry Potter or Stephen King.

It just shows what a cynical, commercialised industry publishing has become and casts a bleak shadow on the future of aspiring writers like myself - who are apparently only fit to publish a book if we're married to somebody famous or garnered newspaper headlines for some crime or sexual excess.

A good example is Britney Spear's mother Lynne Irene Bridges, who was recently commissioned to write a book on 'good parenting' - until her 16 year old daughter accidentally became pregnant and her older sister dramatically self destructed in front of the world's television screens.

Whether you can write doesn't matter. Whether you know anything remotely connected to the subject matter is irrelevant. As long as your name's got clout, you've got yourself a book deal.

Seinfeld - 'classy guy'

The secondly smear on the clean, white pages of Deceptively Delicious is the ensuing behaviour of Jessica Seinfeld's loud mouthed husband.

Jerry Seinfeld had already helped deliver a shed-load of readers to HarperCollins - bringing both the Seinfeld name and his showbiz contacts. Getting the book endorsed by Oprah Winfrey is practically a golden ticket to publishing success. All that took Jerry was a telephone call.

When news of the plagiarism allegations hit, Jerry was more than happy to throw his tuppence in - and he didn't hold back. He was already scheduled for a lot of TV appearances thanks to the release of his hysterical 'Bee Movie' - which cynically coincided with his wife's book release.

When David Letterman questioned Jerry about similarities between his wife's book and that of Missy Chase Lapine's, Jerry called her a 'crackpot' and dismissed the claims of 'vegetable plagiarism.'

"One of the fun facts of celebrity life," Jerry waxed lyrical, "is wackos who wait in the woodwork to pop out at certain moments of your life."

He concluded his rant with: "Missy Chase Lapine? If you read history, many of the three-name people actually become assassins. Mark David Chapman and, you know, James Earl Ray." He added a note of drama to his voice. "I'm concerned."

Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon outside his Manhattan apartment on Dec. 8, 1980. Civil rights activist Martin Luther King was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968, on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis.

So far, Missy chase Lapine is not reported to have assassinated anybody (although nobody could blame her if she'd thought about it.)

Nasty, Self Important Bully

It was bad enough using a national forum like The Tonight show to rail against an innocent victim of your own deceptive endeavors. However, in comparing Lapine to two of the most reviled murderers of recent history, Jerry Seinfeld crossed the line from 'low class' to 'an utter shit.'

"Jerry Seinfeld is entitled to his opinions," his lawyer Richard Menaker argued. "Even though Jerry Seinfeld is a public figure, he doesn't lose his right to free speech because of that."

Perhaps not - but he's certainly lost the respect and support of many people who'd previously called himself fans of his - myself included.

Even though I'm very much against America's litigation culture, I'm enthusiastically supporting Missy Chase Lapine's decision to sue Seinfeld and his wife for slander, copyright and trademark infringement.

"Jerry Seinfeld is an enormously wealthy and well-known comedian," Missy Chase Lapine told the US District Court in Manhattan, "and Jessica Seinfeld is his wife - but that does not give them license to slander and plagiarize."

Good luck to her - and shame on HarperCollins and the Seinfelds for their cheap, dishonest tricks.