Flutterby™! : The Ways of Fiction Are Devious Indeed

On the one hand this is an essay about plagiarism and source material, on the other hand it's also about how popularizers rewrite history to conform to the mores and concerns of their time, erasing a lot. ‘The Ways of Fiction Are Devious Indeed’: Finding current relevancy—and outrage—in the accusations of plagiarism that have long haunted a classic of the West: Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose.

“My editor thought those journals were real. He pretty much shouted at me, ‘You can’t use journals written by somebody else!’ ”

I stared. “Exactly, Dad! That’s what Stegner’s done! Why are you defending him?” My mother and I both looked at him, waiting. He looked sad. “The man was my friend.”