Penguin ‘counters’ after Zoe Greenberg’s accusations about Leah McLaren’s memoirs

Penguin Random House Canada said it would “reflect” on its procedures after a thread in Leah McLaren’s memoir accused the writer of falsely describing the woman’s sexual assault as consensual. .

Zoe Greenberg, a poet and longtime acquaintance of McLaren, a journalist, wrote in a blog post that, after viewing the manuscript of “Where You End and I Begin”, she informed the publisher that McLaren’s description of the incident was incorrect.

She said that Penguin Random House Canada stopped communicating with her after she provided proof that McLaren knew of her objections to the painting.

In separate statements to The Canadian Press, the publisher and McLaren both said that she and her editors revised the book section about the alleged assault, taking into account the by Greenberg.

The book describes a pool party in which McLaren, then 13 or 14 years old, and Greenberg, who she did not name, drank LSD and had sex with one of their male classmates.

Greenberg alleges in the Medium blog post that a male classmate sexually assaulted her when she was 16, and she says McLaren was involved.

McLaren denies that she assaulted her friend or assisted in an assault.

She said she stood by what she wrote.

Greenberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on December 8, 2022.