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    Alex Haley's Roots: An Author's Odyssey
    Alex Haley's Roots: An Author's Odyssey
    Alex Haley's Roots: An Author's Odyssey
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Alex Haley's Roots: An Author's Odyssey

    By Adam Henig

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    About this ebook

    In 1977, following the airing of the mega hit television mini-series Roots, its author, Alex Haley, became America’s newest “folk hero."

    His book was on the Times' Best Seller's list for months, and won the Pulitzer Prize. His story had captivated a nation and then the world. From Idaho to Israel, it seemed everyone was caught-up in “Rootsmania.”

    Alex Haley, the ghostwriter behind The Autobiography of Malcolm X, was on his way to becoming the most successful African American author in the history of publishing until it all fell apart.

    What happened?

    Based on interviews of Haley's contemporaries, personal correspondence, legal documents, newspaper accounts, Adam Henig investigates the unraveling of one of America’s most successful yet enigmatic authors.

    PRAISE
    "Henig recounts the highs and lows of Haley’s life with sympathy, addressing the critiques honestly." - Publishers Weekly's Booklife
    "Adam Henig has created a gem... A must read for anyone interested in the interplay of politics, race and mixed blessings of fame and fortune that produced the contradictory legacy of a onetime icon." - Terry P. Wilson, Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAdam Henig
    Release dateJan 16, 2015
    ISBN9781311518620
    Alex Haley's Roots: An Author's Odyssey
    Author

    Adam Henig

    Adam Henig is the author of Watergate's Forgotten Hero: Frank Wills, Night Watchman (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2021). He is author of two other books, Alex Haley's Roots: An Author's Odyssey (2014) and Baseball Under Siege: The Yankees, the Cardinals, and a Doctor's Battle to Integrate Spring Training (2016).Adam's writings have appeared in Time, Detroit Metro Times, Tampa Bay Times, Washington Independent Review of Books, History News Network, San Francisco Book Review, and the website BlackPast.For more information, visit www.adamhenig.com.

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    Reviews for Alex Haley's Roots

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    • 5/5
      I read the book ROOTS by Alex Haley in 1978 as an young Indian from middle class. Each of the incidents and customs / traditions of ancient Africans narrated as also the travel of the hero though reluctantly to America as a slave, is still fresh in my memory. I keep quoting the book to my young budding management students for different reasons. Hail Haley!

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    Book preview

    Alex Haley's Roots - Adam Henig

    Alex Haley's Roots

    Praise 

    Henig recounts the highs and lows of Haley’s life with sympathy, addressing the critiques honestly. – Publishers Weekly’s Booklife

    ***

    Few Americans are aware that Alex Haley has two books among the most popular in American history–his collaboration with Malcolm X and Roots.  Adam Henig underscores this point and more in his brief but incisive biography of Haley.  Much more can be said about this magnificent writer and if Henig’s book doesn’t ignite this search, it will stand as a worthy pursuit of Haley’s contribution to American letters. –Herb Boyd, author of Baldwin’s Harlem: A Biography of James Baldwin and co-editor of By Any Means Necessary: Malcolm X: Real, Not Reinvented

    ***

    Some critics accused Alex of making up significant portions of Roots. Did he? Henig tackles this touchy question head on. Result: A highly readable story. –Edward T. Thompson, Editor-in-Chief, Reader’s Digest, 1976-1984.

    ***

    Adam Henig has created a gem….A must read for anyone interested in the interplay of politics, race and mixed blessings of fame and fortune that produced the contradictory legacy of a onetime icon. –Terry P. Wilson, Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

    ***

    Henig’s writing is sharp, brisk and clear. [He] cuts through all the dense details to keep the story moving forward. –Tony Platt, Visiting Professor, San Jose State University

    ***

    Henig takes us on a fascinating journey through Alex Haley’s life…and shows us how Haley’s life was turned upside down by the sudden and overwhelming success of both the book and the miniseries. –Mark My Words Blog

    *** 

    While this 52 page book may be his first, it represents a major literary achievement. This book may renew scholar and the general public’s interest in Roots once again. –Nvasekie Konneh, Black Star News

    Alex Haley's Roots

    An Author's Odyssey

    Adam Henig

    Alex Haley’s Roots: An Author’s Odyssey © copyright 2014 by Adam Henig. All rights reserved. You are welcome to use short excerpts of this book for review or critique purposes. For more information about translation, recording electronically, and other queries contact the author at info@adamhenig.com.

    Cover designed by Rachmad Agus of RAC Design

    Contents

    Praise

    *Bonus*

    1. Rootsmania

    2. Legal Tomfoolery

    3. Mark Ottaway

    4. A Formidable Opponent

    5. Dodged A Bullet

    6. The Trial

    7. Roots Unraveled

    8. A Complicated Legacy

    *BONUS: Under One Roof: The Yankees, the Cardinals, and a Doctor's Battle to Integrate Spring Training (Excerpt)

    Author's Note

    Notes

    Acknowledgements

    About the Author

    *Bonus*

    At the end of this book, I’ve included an excerpt of my second book, Under One Roof: The Yankees, the Cardinals, and a Doctor’s Battle to Integrate Spring Training. It’s the unforgettable story about Dr. Ralph Wimbish, a little-known African American civil rights activist who risked it all to achieve racial justice in America’s national pastime.

    ***

    If you enjoyed reading Alex Haley’s Roots, get ready for my next book, The Night Watchman: Frank Wills, Watergate’s Forgotten Hero. 

    Be the first to find out about the release of The Night Watchman by signing up for my free, monthly newsletter by clicking here The newsletter is an update about the progress of my research and writing, upcoming book talk events, and my book and movie recommendations. To see a previous newsletter, click here.

    No spam. No selling of emails to a third party. No advertisements. Unsubscribe at any time.

    For more information, visit www.adamhenig.com.

    1

    Rootsmania

    Sunday, January 23, 1977

    Neither man uttered a word. Inside his suite at the Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue in New York City, actor Warren Beatty looked over at his fifty-five-year-old friend, Alex Haley. The two-hour television premiere of Roots, adapted from Haley’s best-selling book, had just ended. The credits were rolling.

    Did you have any idea, any dream of all this? Beatty asked.

    If I had, I’d have typed a whole lot faster, the writer quipped in his deep baritone Southern drawl.

    Beatty, who had met Haley a few years earlier through their film agent, remarked prophetically, Your life will never be the same again.

    The following evening at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, Haley was scheduled to deliver a talk on the same stage on which the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed. Before the doors opened, Haley stepped onto the stage to survey the three-thousand-seat auditorium. It wasn’t the first time he’d spoken at a venue of this size, but this one was certainly the most impressive. Though the audiences and venues changed, the topic never did.

    Haley’s talk was always about his work-in-progress, a genealogical account spanning more than two centuries. The story began with Haley’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, Kunta Kinte, a West African captured by slave traders. It followed Kunta Kinte’s life in bondage and the lives of his descendants. Based on stories Haley had first heard from his grandmother as a youngster on her front porch in Henning, Tennessee, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, would take twelve years, two editors, and a failed marriage to complete.

    What inspired Haley to pen a book about his ancestry took hold during his early years as a freelance writer. In 1959, after serving two decades in the US Coast Guard—the latter half spent as the coast guard’s chief journalist—Haley had relocated to Greenwich Village, a popular destination at the time for struggling artists, musicians, and, of course, writers. Barely able to afford three meals a day, the five-foot-nine,

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