Subject: Crown Publishers Denies Boy's Book On AIDS Is Hoax
Date: Published: 5/25/93 (69 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Marketing & Media:
    Crown Publishers
    Denies Boy's Book
    On AIDS Is Hoax
    ---
    Existence of Dying Teenager,
    Who Was Abuse Victim,
    Is Questioned by Newsweek
    ----
    By Meg Cox
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    NEW YORK -- Crown Publishers denied the suggestion in a Newsweek
 magazine article this week that the author of its book "Rock and a
 Hard Place" may not exist, saying in a letter to booksellers that
 "we stand behind the book and its author absolutely and without
 reservation."
    Newsweek said it stands by its article.
    "A Rock and a Hard Place" by Anthony Godby Johnson is the story
 of a teenage boy dying of AIDS, who writes that he was brutally
 abused by his parents but then adopted by loving social workers.
 Newsweek suggests that the story is too good to be true, and notes
 that nobody at the publishing house has seen Tony in person; the boy
 is said to be too ill with tuberculosis and AIDS to have visitors.
    The Newsweek article suggests that the book may have been written
 by Paul Monette, a well-known writer who recommended the manuscript
 to his own agent, and who wrote the book's introduction.  Crown
 Publishers, Mr. Monette and others associated with the book
 expressed outrage at the Newsweek accusation, as did the Make-A-Wish
 Foundation of New Jersey, which gave Tony the computer with which he
 purportedly wrote the book.  "I can absolutely promise you this isn't
 a hoax," says a spokeswoman for the foundation.  "We never grant a
 wish without getting a complete statement from a child's physician."
    Mr. Monette, author of 16 books and winner of the National Book
 Award for Non-Fiction last year for his book "Becoming a Man," said
 in a telephone interview yesterday, "I never touched a word of
 Tony's manuscript.  I talked to this kid every night for an hour and
 a half for a year, and he would read a piece and I'd say, `Very
 good.  Keep going.'" Adds Mr. Monette, "I never visited the kid but
 why should I?  I'm dying of AIDS myself, and I don't want to get TB. 
 You know, I've never met Phillip Roth either, but it never crossed
 my mind he doesn't exist."
    Darryl Ponicsan, a writer who is working on a script for a
 television movie about Tony, sent a letter to Newsweek attacking the
 article.  "I've worked daily with Tony for five months on the film
 adaptation of his story," writes Mr. Ponicsan.  "I've read what he's
 written since `A Rock and a Hard Place.' "He's almost finished a
 novel, writing in bed with the keyboard on his chest and it is
 brilliant.  I've heard the wheezing, coughing and struggling for
 breath that he managed to hide for the few minutes he spoke with the
 Newsweek reporter."  Newsweek wrote that "in a lengthy phone
 interview he Tony never once wheezed, coughed or struggled for
 breath" despite "family protestations that his lungs have been
 ravaged by pneumonia."
    Since it was published in late April, "A Rock and a Hard Place"
 has been embraced by some independent booksellers, as reported in
 this paper, but hasn't been a huge seller.  About 20,000 copies are
 currently in print and so far the book has appeared on just one
 regional bestseller list, in Seattle.  Crown is a unit of Advance
 Publications Inc. 

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