Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [212]
Even by February 1964, Haley remained confused over Malcolm’s problems with the Nation, believing that the suspension was only temporary and that he would soon rejoin the group. On February 11, in a letter to Gibbs, he suggested “that the ban will . . . be lifted” sometime that month. He still envisioned the book’s climax as revolving around Malcolm’s embrace of Elijah, the subject turning “his life . . . around and he becomes arch—‘puritan’ so to speak, and blasts everything that went before.” Haley was not above enhancing the material when discussing it with his editors, partly because of the story’s real commercial possibilities, but also probably to justify the many extensions he required to complete it. On February 18, as he submitted his latest chapter, “Hustler,” he wrote to his editors, “We have here the book that, when it gets to the public, is going to run away from everything else. Because it has so much. . . . Exciting as is Malcolm’s criminal life that we’re now seeing, I tell you that it’s nothing compared with the front seat. We are going to hear of his in-prison subjective turnabout.” Haley anticipated that the book would be done by late March, with a brief afterword, which he would write to represent his own reflections about Malcolm, to be submitted the next month. Because Malcolm had not yet rejected the separatist vision of Muhammad, Haley felt that he had to insert himself into the text, reassuring white readers that the mainstream Negro truly did desire integration. As he explained to his editor and agents, “I plan to hit very hard, speaking from the point of the Negro who has tried to do all of the things that are held up as the pathway to enjoy the American Dream, and who . . . so often gets disillusioned and disappointed. . . . I am going to give some courses that every American and every Christian needs to wrestle with.”
When Malcolm left the Nation, it soon became clear that the book could not remain as written, prompting further work from Haley and a necessary reevaluation of his timetable for finishing. On March 21, Haley forwarded a letter to Reynolds and Doubleday editor Kenneth McCormick, explaining why “there has been, over the past couple of weeks, more time-gap than usual between chapters,” due to Malcolm’s recent moves, which he emphasized would “add, add, add to the book’s drama.” Once again Haley followed up a request for more time with boasts about the potential of the Autobiography: “Gentlemen, not in a decade, and maybe longer, [has there been] a book that is going to sweep the market like wildfire to equal this one.” But his primary objective in the letter was to explain how Malcolm’s break with the Nation might affect the book’s reception. He now envisioned a new chapter, “Iconoclast,” in which Malcolm was suspended by “the man he had come to revere (and says he still does).” He would explain Malcolm’s new organization and examine his relationship with Cassius Clay. He related Captain Joseph’s plot to bomb Malcolm’s car and suggested that the recent death threats, and the uncertainty of where Malcolm might turn next, made the whole story a tabloid dream. “For this man is so hot, so HOT, a subject, I know you agree . . . this book is so pregnant with millions or more sales potential, including to make foreign rights hotly bid for!”
At the end of March, Reynolds contacted Gibbs, informing him that Malcolm had asked for all future royalty payments to him to be paid to Muslim Mosque, Inc. Reynolds also enclosed a document signed by Malcolm approving of all chapters that had been completed. Malcolm pressed Doubleday for more money, asking for an advance of $2,500 on the outstanding $7,500 in advance payment he was to receive with the submission of the completed manuscript. McCormick approved Malcolm’s request, but it was not until mid-June, when Malcolm had again left the country, that Gibbs finally forwarded the check.
When Malcolm finally returned to the United States on May 21, 1964, his first priority was to