Complaint Review: Jennifer Haigh

Does HEAT AND LIGHT by Jennifer Haigh Infringe the Copyright of THE FISHER KING by Hayley Kelsey? Read on to Decide for Yourself (and see more at https://medium.com/@hayleykelseyauthor)

History:

Between May 7-21, 2011, I gave away e-copies of my novel to 25 Goodreads and 20 LibraryThing Free Giveaway winners in exchange for reviews. Haigh has been a Goodreads member since June 2011. 

On May 1, 2013, Haigh accepted my Facebook “friend” request, letting her read my posts promoting my novel on her timeline.

Between July 6-8, 2013, I gave aways 464 e-copies in an Amazon KDP Free Book Promotion in exchange for reviews.

On September 23, 2013 (with December 20 follow-up), I submitted a query letter, synopsis, and first 50 pages of my novel to agent Dorian Karchmar at William Morris Endeavor, who represents alleged infringer Haigh.

On May 3, 2016, Heat and Light was published by Ecco Press.

Haigh’s first novel, Mrs. Kimble, published in 2003 by Harper Collins, is strikingly similar in plot to Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich, published in 1996 by Harper Collins. Is Haigh a serial infringer?

Does HEAT AND LIGHT Have Striking and Substantial Similarities to THE FISHER KING?

• Setting: In The Fisher King, rural Pennsylvania farm. In Heat and Light: rural Pennsylvania farm.
• Identical main characters’ names: In The Fisher King, Wesley/Wes, Peter. In Heat and Light, Wesley/Wes, Pete.
• Identical minor characters’ names: In The Fisher King, Vance, Wade. In Heat and Light, Vance, Wade.
• Identical use of main character’s nickname: In The Fisher King, one son, Randall, Jr., is named for father, Randall, but called by nickname, Sonny, and older sons are not. In Heat and Light, one son, Rich, is named for father, d**k, but called by nickname and younger son is not.
• Nearly identical character traits: In The Fisher King, patriarch King is overbearing, controlling; Gail is mid-thirties and taller than her lover; younger brother Wes is dreamy, unsuited to farming. In Heat and Light, patriarch d**k is overbearing, controlling; Jess is mid-thirties and taller than her lover; younger brother Darren is dreamy, unsuited to farming.
• In The Fisher King, over-farming/overfishing caused loss of income, making farmers/watermen vulnerable to big business greed (commercial farming/fishing), which exploits island and bay, pollutes them with chemicals, depletes them of natural resources, destroys islanders’ health, puts them out of work, and forces them to abandon island. In Heat and Light, fallow farms caused loss of income, making farmers vulnerable to big business greed (fracking), which exploits farms, pollutes them with chemicals, depletes them of natural resources (oil, soil), destroys farmers’ health, puts them out of work, and forces them to abandon farming.
• In The Fisher King, conflicting goals of farmers, government, big business, and environmental activists divide community. In Heat and Light, conflicting goals of farmers, government, big business, and environmental activists divide community.
• In The Fisher King, Gail’s farm father raised her as a boy; she seeks to prove herself physically capable of farming/fishing; women are marginalized in men’s world of physical labor and finance and must prove self. In Heat and Light, farm father raised Mack as a boy; she seeks to prove herself physically capable of farming; women are marginalized in men’s world of physical labor and finance and must prove self.
• In The Fisher King, characters’ health is damaged by environmental pollutant-causing cancer (King, Sonny, Milton). In Heat and Light, characters’ health is damaged by environmental pollutant-causing cancer (Wes).
• In The Fisher King, rivalry among three brothers; two left the island 20 years earlier for college and return while one remained behind to fish with father; one son wants to inherit fishery to carry on ancestral tradition and family name while brothers do not. In Heat and Light, rivalry between two brothers; one left the farm 20 years earlier for college and returns while one remained behind to farm with father; one son wants to inherit farm to carry on ancestral tradition and family name while brother does not.
• In The Fisher King, brothers Don and Peter return after 20-year absence and resume affairs with teenage sweetheart Gail. In Heat and Light, brother Darren returns after 20-year absence and resumes affair with teenage sweetheart Gia.
• In The Fisher King, Gail has affair with environmental activist Peter. In Heat and Light, Rena has affair with environmental activist Lorne.
• In The Fisher King, Gail has affair with newcomer businessman Don. In Heat and Light, Jess has affair with newcomer businessman Herc.
• In The Fisher King, environmental activist Peter is skinny, long-haired, aging hippie and newcomer who takes advantage of Gail’s unworldly naïveté and lonely isolation to win her allegiance by romancing her. In Heat and Light, environmental activist Lorne is skinny, long-haired, aging and newcomer who takes advantage of Rena’s unworldly naïveté and lonely isolation to win her allegiance by romancing her.
• In The Fisher King, Aspen is pre-med student whom Gail turns to for interpretation of Sonny’s medical diagnosis. In Heat and Light, brother Darren was pre-med student whom patriarch almost turns to for interpretation of daughter’s medical diagnosis.
• In The Fisher King, Gail becomes pregnant and gives birth to illegitimate son, perpetuating generational illegitimacy (Arlene gave birth to Gail who, unmarried, gave birth to Andy). In Heat and Light, female character became pregnant and gave birth to illegitimate son, perpetuating generational illegitimacy (unmarried female character gave birth to her who, unmarried, gave birth to son)
• In The Fisher King, Gail struggles to come to terms with her role in younger brother Wes’s death. In Heat and Light, Rich struggles to come to terms with his role in younger brother Darren’s drug addiction.
• In The Fisher King, continuously burning landfill symbolizes environmental wasteland. In Heat and Light, continuous fracking symbolizes environmental wasteland.
• Nearly identical denouement: The Fisher King ends ambiguously; father of Gail’s child not revealed; neither big business, environmentalists, or locals win in the end; Sonny leaves homes, frees himself of father’s influence, gains independence and maturity. Heat and Light ends ambiguously; whether pollutants or Shelby is making her child ill is not revealed; neither big business, environmentalists, or locals win in the end; youngest son Darren leaves homes, frees himself of family’s influence, gains independence and maturity.
• Nearly identical themes: In The Fisher King, identity strongly tied to being watermen; traditional commercial fishing threatened by big business, technology, global commerce, environmental pollution; the characters are trapped by circumstances beyond their control; the health, economic, and environmental consequences of ecological damage; importance of work to identity; importance of community to sense of belonging, purpose; importance of place and historical connection to it; importance of inheriting and passing on to the next generation island, family business, genes, vanishing way of life, a future. In Heat and Light, identity strongly tied to being farmers; traditional commercial farming threatened by big business, technology, global commerce, environmental pollution; the characters are trapped by circumstances beyond their control; the health, economic, and environmental consequences of ecological damage; the importance of work to identity; importance of community to sense of belonging, purpose; importance of place and historical connection to it; importance of inheriting and passing on to the next generation farmland, family business, genes, vanishing way of life, a future.

Does HEAT AND LIGHT Have Plot and Theme Similarities to THE FISHER KING?

There are the eight main elements that comprise the “heart” on which The Fisher King turns and Heat and Light takes seven of them:

1. Business—Greed caused big business (fracking) to exploit the farmland, depleting it of natural resources (oil, soil), polluting the environment, destroying residents’ health, and putting themselves out of work.              

2. Conservation—The importance of preserving and reclaiming the land from environmental damage.

3. Work—The importance of work to identity; plan to turn farm into business; women are marginalized in men’s world of physical labor and finance and must prove self.

4. Setting—The importance of place, specifically farmland and historical connection to it, to identity.

5. Community—The importance of community to sense of belonging, purpose.

6. Inheritance—The importance of inheriting and passing on: farmland, family business, vanishing way of life, genes, a future.

7. Illegitimacy—Main female characters have affairs and illegitimate pregnancy.

Does HEAT AND LIGHT Have Line-by-Line Similarities to THE FISHER KING?

11—Setting: rural Pennsylvania 9—Mackey dairy farm IDENTICAL TO 28—rural Pennsylvania...we moved to a farm 45—my father, a dairyman

9—roads that have never appeared on a map. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 155—referred to inlets not on any maps

13—who waved him off her porch as though swatting a fly. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 49—He brushed my hand away as if it were one of the flies circling through the air

29—Wade IDENTICAL TO 72-throughout—Wade

39—[Rich] is named for his father. Both feel the weight of their naming SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 17—“Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley,” Sonny’s parents … [his] name too, minus the “Jr.” 167—Only Sonny received a different nickname altogether instead of being called Randy or Junior … Sonny’s nickname … reflected his identity as a son, and that each time King uttered it, he was reasserting his claim on his youngest boy, reinforcing it. 

52—Shelby riffled through the clutter on the table—junk mail, clipped coupons SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 17—junk mail—supermarket circulars, flyers for vacation timeshares 359—I … began flipping through the … junk mail.

55—Darren, the baby, had always been her favorite. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 160—Sonny [the baby] had always been his father’s favorite

57—He was nearly mute with shame. 107—There is … shame. 230—Her face is hot with shame. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 262--His voice trembled...[with] shame. 19—A familiar mixture of shame 21—“For shame,” 58—my impulse shamed me 71—felt a pinch of shame. 132—Shame singed me 306—My vanity had shamed me 343—Shame kindled in me 362—This was uttered without a trace of shame 382—filled me with, not shame exactly  279—Shame floods her 414—shame engulfed me.

63-throughout—Wesley, Wes IDENTICAL TO 30-throughout—Wesley, Wes

64-65—The service ended, she helps Lois Fetterson at the refreshments table. The social runs from ten to eleven—for Shelby, an anxious hour. She helps herself to coffee but skips the doughnuts … Lois Fetterson is a notorious gossip. Shelby’s life is in no way gossip-worthy, and yet she feels a strong urge to conceal facts from Lois, for the simple pleasure of denying her. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 205—Afterwards, the congregation filed down to the basement for refreshments. The women clustered around a table against the far wall and busied themselves serving coffee and cutting cake. 207—Mae … the gossip they freely traded might be none of their business. 208—a protective instinct rose up in me. 209—But I kept my mouth shut.

75—Open Mike, the local radio station’s call-in show. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 217—I switched off the talk radio station

80—It’s Rena who grapples with each month’s bleak mathematics, confronting in the end an untenable equation: the volatile dairy market on one side, the hundred small and large expenses, constantly fluctuating, on the other. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 8—I kept the books. 218—balancing the books each week fell to me … I was doing the books. Before me on the monitor columns unfurled across a multi-colored spreadsheet. 219—I entered all the data into the debit and credit columns

83-throughout—Pete IDENTICAL TO 112-throughout—Peter

83—it was Rena who read Farm News and Dairy Week and Graze SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 15—Every night we sat up in bed with our respective reading, me with The International Fisheries Market Report.

 83—[Rena] manned the ledger, money in, money out … While Mack squirmed like a restless schoolboy STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 208—jotted down the day’s numbers in a ledger, so balancing the books each week fell to me. 209—I compared the figures against the ledger 219—I entered all the data into the debit and credit columns, 75—I sensed him [Sonny] stirring restlessly. 12—He [Sonny] sat … like a child forced to endure a lecture. 

85—Like its owner, the store was resistant to change. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 248—Like his father, Sonny had always strenuously resisted change.

91—Her clothing—a skirt and high heels, careful makeup—makes her seem even younger, like a child playing dress-up. NEARLY IDENTICAL TO 69—Dressed up, I looked even younger, as if I were a child playing dress-up 

93—Rena smells them before she sees them. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 194—I heard the sailboat before I saw it.

93—a chemical smell, intensely sweet and not entirely unpleasant. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 147—the overly sweetish smell … an acrid chemical odor 288—a scent that … wasn’t wholly unpleasant. 

110—he was struck again by her height STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 6—I was nearly as tall as he. 51—I … drew head-to-head with my father. 81—my tall...frame. 125—I was as tall as he was.

117—[Mother Roxanne to daughter Shelby] ”Where’s your handsome husband?” STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 322—[Mother Arlene to daughter Gail] “Where’s my handsome son-in-law?”

122—Cob’s death—a heart attack—surprised no one. IDENTICAL TO 423—The diagnosis—prostate cancer—surprised no one.

159—”YOU. ARE. RESPONSIBLE.” SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 399—“I. Am. Home.” 

165—his hair is inches longer than other men’s, covering collar and bleached nearly white at the ends—the last traces STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 9—his hair. It had gotten too long .. the tips retained their sun-kissed blondness. 57—His hair grew lighter by degrees as the summer sun bleached it. 71—Shorn of his gold-tipped curls. 194—his long hair was bleached a straw-like blonde. 112—long, sand-colored hair.

178—The sameness of everything allows him to pretend, briefly, that no time has passed. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 424—It appeared exactly the same, completely unchanged …. pretending the whole fraught summer had never happened.   

191—He [returned brother Darren] looks okay, a little skinny: concave chest, his pale arms slender as a girl’s. NEARLY IDENTICAL TO 112—[returned brother] Peter … was skinny 194—His breastbone protruded from the downward wings of his ribcage. 270—Peter was...skinny really. 327—his neck as slender as a girl’s.

197—Rain hits hard and sudden, a sound like gunfire. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 364—Big fat round [rain] drops splashed heavily onto the baked ground...it sounded like rapid machine gun fire.

198—Rich runs a hand through his hair, still conspicuously thick and wavy. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 203—He raked his hands through his hair. 389—His hands raked his hair. 117—thick wavy hair

199, 311—Vance IDENTICAL TO 68-77—Vance

209—His dad moves around the house like a shadow, a precursor to the ghost he will … become. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 278—him silently wandering up and down … in the middle of the night … a spectral figure

224—Rena has taken to playing the radio at suppertime—Open Mike, the local call-in show—just to hear another voice. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 162—Now, I mostly listened to talk radio. I was hungry for the company, for the sound of a human voice. 217—I left it [call-in radio show] on all the time … and the hum of voices served as background noise.

245—The purity of his motives was beyond all doubt. NEARLY IDENTICAL TO 178—I always acted out of the purest of motives.

248—It wasn’t a question. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 106—It wasn’t a question. 251—It wasn’t a question. 350—It wasn’t a question. 356—It wasn’t a question. 

254—”You’re a terrible liar.” STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 179—Sonny was a hopeless liar.

262—piled with seed catalogs, junk mail, unpaid bills. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 160—the kitchen table was a pile of … bills, seed catalogs. 359—Envelopes were fanned across the table …. bills and junk mail.

269—named King. What was King thinking on those cold mornings? IDENTICAL TO 9-throughout—Main character named King

314—[Impotence scene] “What’s the matter?” says Shelby. “Nothing. I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s not your fault.”…”Did I do something wrong?” … he mumbles. “Nothing really works anymore.” “That’s okay.” STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 69—[Impotence scene] “What did I do wrong?” I asked. “Nothing,” he breathed. “It’s not you. I … I …” he trailed off. “It’s all right,” I said.

326—A lab report is attached. Rich’s eyes slide over the columns of figures, values for methane, ethane, SMCLs. He has no idea what he’s looking at. For a moment he thinks of his brother, who before flunking out or withdrawing or simply wandering away from Johns Hopkins had earned half a degree in chemistry. I could call him, Rich thinks. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 240—The numbers and what they measured—lymphocytes, agglutination—were unintelligible. And the few I recognized—platelet count, hematocrit—made no sense without norms for comparison … I carried it around for days before it occurred to me to ask [pre-med student] Aspen.

335—the heroes in romance novels, the grubby paperbacks her mother bought by the dozen at rummage sales and read compulsively… Teenage Rena read the same books … the … Brads. They bore no resemblance to actual men. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 34—Mom would be curled up in a chair with one of her dime-store romances. 41—Her favorite subjects were the romance novels she devoured. 42—she paused dramatically, eyes flashing. ”Brad!” 103—My romantic sensibilities had been formed by my mother’s dramatic tales 

339—”Are you happy now?” IDENTICAL TO 181—”Happy now?”

357—”You are home,” “No. You’re home.” STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 398—”Home, of course,”...”I. Am. Home.” … ”I mean my home. Our home.”

383—Last week he keeled over … surprising no one.” SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 353—He’ll keel over first 405—The diagnosis … surprised no one

387—she understood the depth of her foolishness. She had misread the situation completely. Lorne cared nothing for her. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 399—And I suddenly realized something else. It wasn’t me Don and Peter wanted … I foolishly flattered myself that … they were after … me. 

409—”You’re offering me a job?” IDENTICAL TO 301—“You’re offering me a job?” … “You’re offering me a job?” King repeated.

416—They live on the farm as though it were an island. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 32—There is a way in which I have always lived on islands … farms and islands are all vast, enclosed, isolated spaces

425—Dark Elephant [Co.] contaminated his water and stole his future. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 230—“chemical pollutants in, like, the water and air and land” ... industrial chemicals. 405—”This was going to be for my … future!” 237—He wanted his future back

425—And yet, against tall odds, he’d built something, a business to pass on to his children. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 116—and yet he’d built King Crab Co. into a success. 80—Sonny … stood to inherit it. 120—Like farm kids, most preferred to follow in their father’s footsteps in the hopes of one day inheriting 121—a farm boy who’d go on to inherit his father’s farm. 219—the business we’d one day inherit. 237—”take over the family business. After all, they stand to inherit it one day.”