Booksellers in Sydney and Melbourne were still stocking a MeToo blockbuster by Ronan Farrow despite online retailers Amazon and Booktopia having halted sales in the wake of legal letters from a former Australian journalist.
Dylan Howard, a former Channel Seven reporter-turned-executive with the US tabloid giant American Media Inc (AMI), was repeatedly named as having worked with disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein by investigative journalist Farrow in his book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators.
Anna Low, the owner of Potts Point Bookshop, said she would keep selling Catch and Kill until its distributor, Hachette, told her otherwise. "The publishers have done their work, you assume," said Ms Low, who had not received any legal threats.
Anna Low, the owner, stacks the shelves at Potts Point Bookshop.Credit:Renee Nowytarger
Hachette, which owns Catch and Kill's publisher Little, Brown UK, was standing by the work in the face of legal threats from Howard, who has engaged lawyers in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Farrow, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his New Yorker exposé of Weinstein, said he was sorry the book was unavailable and criticised the companies that had stopped selling it.
"I hope you can import or buy from an independent bookseller, and avoid outlets that yield to these kinds of intimidation tactics," Farrow said on Twitter.
Farrow's book refers to Howard in at least 20 separate passages. He wrote that Howard met repeatedly with Weinstein and told the entertainment heavyweight, via an email Farrow obtained, that he had unflattering information to share about an actress who had accused Weinstein of rape. Howard has denied passing along an audio recording that one of his reporters obtained about the actress.
Howard previously told Farrow he had only ever shared information with Weinstein as part of a commercial partnership that AMI had with Weinstein's company, and that it had never affected his independent editorial judgment.
Dylan Howard, a former Channel Seven reporter pictured here in 2014, made a career for himself in the US tabloid industry.Credit:Getty Images
Farrow also recounted how, after he began reporting on AMI, the tabloid began targeting him, including asking him for comment on a piece that implicated Farrow in a fabricated "Brazilian sex romp" with another reporter who had written critically about AMI. Howard has denied Farrow's version of events.
Of the numerous booksellers contacted by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, from large chains like Dymocks to individual stores including Bondi store Gertrude and Alice, none said they had pulled the book.
One Melbourne-based independent bookseller, who did not wish to be named, said the book was selling strongly.
"It arrived from the publishers yesterday and sold like hotcakes," the bookseller said. "It sold much better than either of the Booker [prize] winners. We're happy to sell it until someone tells us not to."
Sybil Williams, a marketing consultancy founder, who pre-ordered the book on Amazon's Kindle platform, said she was frustrated the book had been pulled without any notice.
She said she had been looking forward to reading the book because two years ago she said "Me too" as part of the global wave of women.
"It’s ironic," Ms Williams said. "It’s a book about censorship and it's being censored."
Amazon and Booktopia declined to comment.
Ms Low, the Sydney bookseller, said she had previously received legal letters about other books, including Billion Dollar Whale, the 2018 exposé of wheeler-dealer Jho Low's alleged misappropriation of vast sums from a Malaysian wealth fund. Mr Low was wanted by authorities in multiple countries for his alleged crimes, which he has denied.
Howard's Australian lawyers sent letters to some booksellers before the book was released on Tuesday, warning that if there were any passages Howard perceived to be defamatory then he would launch legal proceedings against them.
"We have been instructed to review the book in respect of the matters alleged against our client," Andrew Thorpe, Howard's solicitor, said on Wednesday. "When we have done so, we will obtain our client’s instructions."
Mr Thorpe declined to comment on the substance of the allegations against Howard.
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