The Bear Bryant Funeral Train

Brad Vice, an English professor from Mississippi State University, has been accused of plagiarizing parts of The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, a winner of the prestigious Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. After the book’s publication by the University of Georgia Press, Margaret Butler, a librarian at the Tuscaloosa Public Library, was shocked when she looked at its first page. She recognized the first lines as being from Stars Fell on Alabama, published by Carl Carmer in 1934 and reprinted by the University of Alabama Press in 2000. Upon a comparison of the two works, Ms. Butler and another librarian found other examples of identical wording. The publisher has now revoked the award and pulped all remaining copies of the book.

For more information: http://www.nypress.com/18/48/news&columns/RobertClarkYoung.cfm