More than a decade ago, Jay Asher’s young adult novel, “Thirteen Reasons Why,” a dark story about a bullied teenager who kills herself, became an unexpected best-seller. Teachers and librarians around the country embraced the novel as a timely and groundbreaking treatment of bullying and teenage suicide, and the novel went on to sell several million copies. A popular Netflix adaptation sparked controversy over its depiction of the causes of suicide but still drew hordes of new readers to the book and has been renewed for a third season.
Then, last year, Asher’s career imploded when he was accused of sexual misconduct, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators announced that he had violated the professional organization’s anti-harassment policy. The repercussions were swift: His literary agency dropped him, speaking engagements and book signings evaporated, and some bookstores removed his novels from their shelves.
Now Asher, who denied the allegations, has filed a lawsuit against the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the group’s executive director, Lin Oliver, claiming that Oliver and the organization made false and defamatory statements about him that torpedoed his career and caused financial harm and intentional emotional distress.
“I do not condone harassment of any sort and have spent my entire career standing up for its victims, so these statements were devastating,” Asher, who declined to be interviewed for this article, said in a statement.
In the lawsuit, which was filed in a California state court in Los Angeles, Asher claims that Oliver and her organization never properly investigated the complaints against him and ignored exonerating evidence.
The lawsuit will likely further fuel an ongoing debate about the scope and messy aftermath of the #MeToo movement in the children’s book world, which has seen a string of scandals involving prominent authors such as Asher, James Dashner, Sherman Alexie and illustrator David Diaz.
Publishers, booksellers and agents have wrestled with how to handle anonymous allegations against authors when the accusations are hard to confirm, and with whether it’s appropriate to rehabilitate the careers of those accused. Some publishers have canceled contracts and pulped books, and many have expanded the use of morals clauses and “author conduct” clauses in book contracts, which allow publishers to cancel book deals if the author is credibly accused of unethical behavior.
Children’s book publishers in particular have reacted swiftly to harassment allegations against authors, given their books’ impressionable audiences and their reliance on teachers and librarians, who might be reluctant to support the work of authors accused of inappropriate behavior.
But so far, few accused authors have vigorously fought allegations publicly or sought financial damages for lost earnings.
According to the lawsuit, the allegations against Asher surfaced in April 2017, when Oliver received emails that were purportedly from a group of seven anonymous women who belonged to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. The emails claimed that Asher had used the group’s conferences to prey on women sexually, then threatened them to intimidate them into silence, making them “feel unsafe to attend SCBWI events.”
Asher has acknowledged having affairs with women he encountered at these conferences, but he maintains that they were consensual and that he never threatened any of the women or offered to help them professionally. In the complaint, Asher alleges that “an individual upset over Plaintiff’s success” was behind the emails to Oliver and that in June 2017 one of the alleged seven anonymous women contacted Oliver and told her that the allegations made in April were false. But according to the complaint, “no further investigation” was conducted.
The lawsuit further states that Asher provided the organization with evidence that one of the authors of the emails had “sexually coerced him at a SCBWI Conference” and had been harassing him for more than a decade.
Andrew Baum, a lawyer representing Oliver and the organization, said that the group and Oliver “reject, and will vigorously defend against, Asher’s claims.” Oliver declined to comment further.
In February 2018, the allegations against Asher erupted into a public controversy, after an article on Medium about sexual harassment in the children’s book world set off a cascade of online accusations against prominent illustrators and authors, including Asher and Diaz.
That month, Oliver said in a statement to The Associated Press that the organization had broken with both Asher and Diaz. “Claims against them were investigated and, as a result, they are no longer members and neither will be appearing at any SCBWI events in the future,” she said.
Asher disputed Oliver’s characterization. “In April 2017, Mr. Asher voluntarily agreed that he would no longer attend SCBWI conferences,” Asher’s spokeswoman, Tamara Taylor, said in a statement. “This was in response to many years of harassment from a group of authors with whom he had consensual relationships that ended with some hurt feelings when they learned about each other.”
Asher’s complaint states that he has suffered psychologically and economically from “dramatically decreased book sales, and exclusion from involvement in a Netflix series based upon ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’.”
Asher is seeking a jury trial and unspecified financial damages.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.