Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [211]
The increasing difficulties and uncertainties in Malcolm’s life were mirrored in the progress of his autobiography. When Malcolm was silenced by Elijah Muhammad in December 1963, Alex Haley panicked. Without consulting with Malcolm, Haley contacted Chicago to secure a meeting with the Messenger, who assured him that the suspension “wasn’t permanent.” Haley reported to his agent, Paul Reynolds, that the “real purpose” of Muhammad’s action was to underscore his supremacy and authority over the sect. “I assured him that the publisher, you and I, were concerned not to incur his displeasure,” Haley wrote to Reynolds. Muhammad “was interested in hearing about the book, and I sketched its pattern, chapter by chapter, which pleased him.” Like Peter Goldman, Haley did not at first see how deep ran the fissure, and neither Malcolm nor Elijah Muhammad found it prudent to illuminate it for him. Haley’s first priority remained publishing a profitable book, which he still thought required the blessing of Elijah Muhammad.
Haley finally had a lengthy working session with Malcolm just before Christmas 1963. Malcolm read the latest version of the chapter “Laura” and objected to the use of slang in the book, complaining that he no longer spoke that way. Haley consented but complained to his editors and agent, “Somebody said that becoming celebrated always will ruin a good demagogue.” And Malcolm was not the only one with money troubles during this time; Haley’s relocation to upstate New York left him strapped for cash. Doubleday agreed to give him additional advance payments of $750 upon the submission and approval of each of two new chapters. Deeply grateful, Haley stated, “I can write now for the first time not harassed by intermittent money pressures.” In early January, during a heavy snowstorm, Haley managed to drive down to the city to spend time with Malcolm, but found him distressed as his suspension unfolded. Reporting back to his agent and editors, Haley observed that his subject was “tense as the length of his inactivity grows.” Malcolm read several of Haley’s draft “strips,” or sections of narrative text that were the basis for each chapter. Haley was most excited, however, by the essays planned at the end of the book, which presented Malcolm’s social program and political agenda. “The most impact material of the book, some of it rather lava-like, is what I have from Malcolm for the three essay chapters, ‘The Negro,’ ‘The End of Christianity,’ and ‘Twenty Million Black Muslims,’ ” Haley observed. These three chapters represented a blueprint for where Malcolm at that moment believed black America should be moving, and his conviction that Muslims should take a leading role in the construction of a united front among all black people.
Yet for all his work, Haley was still months away from submitting a finished manuscript, which displeased Wolcott Gibbs, Jr., and other Doubleday executives when they were informed of it. Gibbs asked Haley to “please bear in mind that the more rewriting you do, the further we are away from having a finished book.” He pressed for a best estimate of the final manuscript date. Even before Gibbs’s request, Haley shipped off yet another rewritten chapter, “Detroit Red,” on January 28, but Reynolds didn’t like this version and sent off suggestions for revision. On February 6, Haley agreed to “come back to ʹDetroit Red’ and any other chapters and improve them in whatever ways you are good enough to point out to me.” He desperately wanted to finish a whole draft before revising and rearranging chapters, yet Reynolds’s displeasure with his recent work kept him busy fixing chapters he had already tweaked or rewritten. On February 7, Reynolds contacted Gibbs, explaining, “I’m worried about interfering with your function [as editor] but I do want to get a really good book on Malcolm X and I don