Darkest Suburbia...and Beyond!

There are points in the larger story that support this view -- Ms. V acquired the William Morris agent in the first place through the (highly paid) college admissions consultant her parents hired to get her into Harvard, who asked to see her short fiction and thought it impressive enough to take to her agent. And it may be significant that we're looking here at William Morris, which is tied into the movie/TV world as well as to publishing. (Only briefly mentioned in most of the coverage is that somewhere in the deal-making process DreamWorks bought movie rights to the first book -- although that deal has apparently unraveled in the wake of the book's withdrawal.)

At the same time, if there was that much starmaking going on, it's a little surprising that her would-be handlers left her mostly unattended at Harvard as long as they did -- and that they apparently interfered as little as they did in the writing process itself.