Holy Censorship, Batman.

Yeah well, I would say that I am surprised, but I would be lying. Most companies are not willing to risk something that will tarnish their name (or possibly get them sued). I guess in their minds its just easier to deal with one pissed author than CARE or the ACLU filing lawsuits against them for 'hate speech'.

Just my few cents

I just read the whole article.

Holy shit is right. I cannot believe the publisher knuckled under to that!

ETA: And this is the same house that published the Satanic Verses. WTF? I mean, yeah, that was like a generation ago, but so what?

A publisher with some courage stands to make a great deal of money off this book.

Does the name "Salmon Rushdie" ring any bells?

Stupid. Absolutely stupid. Aside from the point that this is an act of sheer cowardice, on the other side of the coin it's poor marketing. A book with that kind of buzz was bound to gain huge amounts of free publicity and people who normally wouldn'thave bothered would have gone out to buy the book.

Ridiculous.

I'm sure the book and author will be picked up by someone else by the end of the week. Asshats.

Williebee said:

A publisher with some courage stands to make a great deal of money off this book.

Does the name "Salmon Rushdie" ring any bells?

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It should for Random House, since they published the bloody thing! *tears hair out*

Random House should ba ashamed of themsleves. That really pisses me off. I'm not terribly surprised, but that only makes it worse.

On the upside... This author has already gotten more publicity than most ever do. This is one of those times when self-publishing may actually turn out to be extremely beneficial.

I really hope that the author either does that, or that another company picks up this book. The hype alone is enough to get her a couple million readers.

Williebee said:

Does the name "Salmon Rushdie" ring any bells?

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He was the first person I thought of.

I wonder if she gets to keep the advance since RH reneged on the contract? Anyone? A hundred grand is a hell of a lot of money.

I wouldn't have bought a copy before... now, I surely will. I'm perverse that way... and I bet more than a few others are, too.

I agree, OFG--sounds like an interesting read. *grin* And you gotta love sticking it to the big guy...

I copy and pasted the entire article from Publisher's Lunch that came in this morning's email...





The Novel About Muhammed Cancelled by Ballantine A WSJ opinion column by Asra Nomani recounts the events that produced Ballantine's cancellation in May of Sherry Jones's debut novel THE JEWEL OF MEDINA, "a tale of lust, love and intrigue in the prophet Muhammed's harem." Nomani says "the series of events that torpedoed this novel are a window into how quickly fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim world."

Random House Group deputy publisher Tom Perry says that the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment." They postponed publication "for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel." Last month a termination agreement was executed so that agent Natasha Kern could shop the book to other publishers.

The column attributes the beginning of the protests to associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin Denise Spellberg, who says "You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography." Spellberg, after reviewing a galley sent for review and endorsement, spoke with someone who runs an e-mail list; that alert was expanded upon by a blogger, which led to someone posting as Ali Hemani iterating a seven-point strategy to make sure "the writer withdraws this book from the stores and apologise [sic] all the muslims across the world."

After the posting, Spellberg (who publishes with Knopf) alerted editor Jane Garrett to what she viewed as potential danger: "Denise says it is 'a declaration of war . . . explosive stuff . . . a national security issue.' Thinks it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons." Three weeks later Libby McGuire informed the author and agent the book was postponed indefinitely for "fear of a possible terrorist threat from extremist Muslims" and concern for "the safety and security of the Random House building and employees."
WSJ

Interesting. But it sounded to me that Spellberg's original comments about the book

Professor Denise Spellberg read an ARC, she denounced the book as a “very ugly, stupid piece of work” (note to authors: Don’t ask her for a cover quote. Ever.) and said, “I don’t have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.”

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started out as a personal taste issue and then she took it to the political level deliberately when speaking to her personal editor at RH. Sounds like she had a problem with the content (c'mon already--you don't think Mohammed slept with his wives????) and translated that into fearmongering--almost as if it's a vendetta against the book.

mscelina said:

Interesting. But it sounded to me that Spellberg's original comments about the book



started out as a personal taste issue and then she took it to the political level deliberately when speaking to her personal editor at RH. Sounds like she had a problem with the content (c'mon already--you don't think Mohammed slept with his wives????) and translated that into fearmongering--almost as if it's a vendetta against the book.

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And considering that Dr. Spellberg has a book of her own out about the same wife of Mohammed, I smell a big stinky rat.

Could this be a clever marketing ploy by Random House? They say they are withdrawing the book immediately before publication, stir up intense interest in it with tons of free publicity, then decide to reconsider, publish it, and it sells wildly? Or am I being too cynical? Guess we'll know if they decide to reconsider and publish.

Ack. This is right up there in terms of intimidation of free expression with the animal rights activists who firebombed a UC Santa Cruz researcher's house this past weekend because he uses mice in his vision research.

I'm both pissed at Random House and embarrassed on behalf of my alma mater, the UT system.

However, I'm guessing the book will now sell like hotcakes when it does get published.

Soccer Mom said:

It's appalling that the very people threatening violence never read the book. Spellberg read it and alerted them that it was offensive. Within hours they had a plan in place to stop the book. That is where I have the problem.

If they were offended by the book subject, they had every right to protest it, but not the right to keep others from reading it.

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Exactly.

Tish Davidson said:

Could this be a clever marketing ploy by Random House? They say they are withdrawing the book immediately before publication, stir up intense interest in it with tons of free publicity, then decide to reconsider, publish it, and it sells wildly? Or am I being too cynical? Guess we'll know if they decide to reconsider and publish.

Ack. This is right up there in terms of intimidation of free expression with the animal rights activists who firebombed a UC Santa Cruz researcher's house this past weekend because he uses mice in his vision research.

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If Random House even considered this as a publicity stunt, I don't know if I'd ever want to buy another book through them again, ever.

That's almost as offensive to me as the censorship itself.

Well, there goes my chance of publishing that neonazi YA book...

Soccer Mom said:

It's appalling that the very people threatening violence never read the book. Spellberg read it and alerted them that it was offensive. Within hours they had a plan in place to stop the book. That is where I have the problem.

If they were offended by the book subject, they had every right to protest it, but not the right to keep others from reading it.

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The trouble with statements like this -- with which I agree, by the way -- is that it fails to take into account the fundamental differences in worldview and beliefs between Islam and Christianity, or Islam and western secular society. It's not just a matter of offense or of protest, but of blasphemy, a crime under the Koran and one taken very seriously. This is a religion, remember, that forbids depictions of the Prophet in art, even in religious art. A depiction which borders, even in one person's opinion, on soft-core pornography?

Again, it's a highly disturbing thing that RH pulled the plug on this, but it's important to look at the underlying paradigms, and to remember that during the days of Rushdie's fatwah (and it's Salman, not Salmon), while he was under guard, translators and other employees of his publishers around the world were being attacked, and in some cases killed.

Well, as a result of this idiocy, The Jewel of Medina will be built up to be the next Satanic Verses. The poor girl who wrote the book will never have a day of peace; she'll constantly be in fear of her safety. Extremists will take the 'opinion' of Dr. Spellberg and run with it, protesting its anti-Muslim statement without ever even touching the book--except to burn it. Of course, Dr. Spellberg has now received a huge amount of publicity as well.

I have a feeling that if there is a conspiracy involved, it intiates right there--with a woman who was given an ARC of a book that involved the same subject as hers and willfully stirred up a hornet's nest to sate her jealousy--or fear that the second book would be better than hers. RH is probably out 150 grand already, bringing the book that close to release and then pulling it. Look to the instigator...

Soccer Mom said:

If they were offended by the book subject, they had every right to protest it, but not the right to keep others from reading it.

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This is the major problem with crazy fundementalist people (and no, I'm not just talking about Muslims). I'm talking about anyone who believes their there way is the only way, and any dissenting view is evil.

And for a publisher to cut a book in response to this type of jackassery is to encourage such jackassery.