What about the elephant in the room? Could it be that the usual vetting went out the door because Margaret Seltzer's editor is the daughter of the Times former book review editor who is currently an editor-at-large for the paper. The fact that the author of the book was profiled smacks of nepotism, and the notion that throughout the entire publishing process and the Times profile no one thought Seltzer's story seemed preposterous--a white teenage girl drug runner-gangbanger in foster care living in South Central? puhleeze--speaks to the guilelessness, gullibility or sheer stupidity of the publishers at Riverhead and the Times.