Read 7

 

Alex Haley: From the Brink of

Suicide to the Best-Seller List

From Family Weekly, ©1977 by Mary Long

 

It is difficult to believe that the man who wrote the book on what television's most popular drama was based should have come close to suicide.  The search for his family's roots--roots that began in the hold of a slave ship--was an emotionally exhausting experience.  Roots is more the good story; it is a man's search for personal meaning.

 

Only two years ago, Alex Haley was a man in the depth of despair.  At one point, he was considering suicide.  Now he is this season's hottest writer--his book, Roots, is a record-breaking best seller, and ABC aired a $6-million, 12-hour drama based on the book.  A slight, scholarly-looking man with a slow grin and a voice touched with a Tennessee-bred softness, Haley is the last person you'd expect to have created the most brutally dramatic book of the year.

But much of what is best in Roots--the story of his family traced back seven generations--was written out of this man's own agony and despair. His voice is low-pitched  and faraway, and he is close to tears as he tells the story.

AI had already put in 10 years of work on my book when I ran into a complete dead end.  Writing about my first ancestor, Kunta Kinte, on his voyage to America aboard a slave ship had become impossible for me.  I had tried and failed many, many times.  Finally, in desperation, I booked passage on a freighter bound for Africa.  Every night, I went down into the hold of the ship, stripped to my underwear, and lay all night on a wooden plank trying to imagine what it would be like for a young man to lie there in chains, hearing the cries of men screaming, praying, and dying all around him.

AI began to worry that I might be losing my mind,@ he says quietly.  AOne night, standing out on the stern deck, watching the freighter's wake, I felt overwhelmed by my burden.  I was about $50,000 in debt.  My publisher and my agent were at me constantly, asking when I would finish this interminable book.  I had told them six months, even though I knew I still had several years of work ahead of me.  Inside my head I was suffering the horrors of what happened to Kunta Kinte in the ship hold.  Then I thought how easy it would be just to slip over the rail into the sea.  I was almost joyful at the idea.@

But at that moment, Haley says he had the most vivid psychic experience of his life.  AI heard the soft voices of my dead family talking to me, encouraging me.  They were saying, >You must finish.  Go on with your book.=  It took a tremendous physical effort to push my body away from the rail.  I scuttled on my hands and knees, back over the hatch covers to my room. I lay on my bed, sobbing for hours.  That night, I knew I finally would be able to find the words to tell my family's story.@

The turmoil and labor that went into Roots is just about unheard of--nearly 10 years of tedious detective work, over two years of writing.  The work was so complex that Haley used to separate his research into manila folders and spread them out, row upon row, in his room.  AI planted them like seeds,@ the writer says, his fingers jabbing the air as though nailing up the words one by one, Aand I plowed through them on hands and knees.@

What  he harvested was a 600-page book that's both a record-breaking best seller and the fulfillment of a personal mission.

RETENTION Based on the passage, which of the following statements are True (T), False (F), or Not answerable (N)?

 

1.                The television dramatization of Roots was twelve hours long.

 

2.                Each night, Haley slept on an actual slave ship.

 

3.                Haley is a big, burly man.

 

4.                Kunta Kinte came from Africa in a slaver.

 

5.                The entire project took Haley about twelve years to complete.

 

6.                Haley=s publisher and agent were not worried about the book=s completion.

 

7.                After a psychic experience, Haley knew he would finish the book.

 

8.                The manila folders had previously been his publisher=s.

 

9.                Haley actually crawled on his hands and knees back from the rail.

 

10.              When he booked passage for Africa, Haley was desperate.

 

 

INFERENCES

1.______   Which of the following statements is probably most accurate?

(a)   Most writers have little trouble writing their books.

(b)   Haley’s despair was unusual even for most writers.

(c)   Because of their moodiness, writers often think of suicide.

 

2.______   Which of the following statements is probably inaccurate?

(a)   Roots involved complex research even though it was a novel.

(b)   Roots was basically a family novel.

(c)   Understanding a slave’s feelings was fairly easy.

 

COMPLETION     Choose the best answer for each question.

1.______   Haley apparently comes from: (a) Africa. (b) Manila. (c) Tennessee.          (d) Chicago.

 

2.______   Roots traces a family over: (a) and over. (b) its entire history. (c) the ocean. (d) seven generations.

 

3.______   Much of preparing for the book was: (a) detective work. (b) slow and dull. (c) seed work. (d) brutally dramatic.