My Haley, widow of ‘Roots’ author Alex Haley, to publish new book

When My Haley was a little girl, she remembers bursting out of her bed in the morning, running to her grandmother's room and jumping on her while she was still in bed.

Haley was attached to her at the hip.

"She used to tell me she had a limp from me clinging to it so much," Haley said.

It was her grandmother who raised her while her parents worked, taught her about African American culture and introduced her to the power behind telling a story.

"I would crawl into her lap and listen to her tell a story," Haley said. "She would hold my little hand to her throat as she spoke so I could feel the power of words."

Haley, who lives in the Whitney area on the outskirts of Henderson, is now a storyteller herself, known for collaborations with her late husband Alex Haley, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Roots: The Saga of an American Family," which chronicled his ancestors through life in Africa, the Middle Passage, American slavery and emancipation.

My Haley is expected to release her most recent work, "The Treason of Mary Louvestre," in February. Once again following black life during the Civil War era, the book is based on the true story of a slave.

John Koehler, founder of Koehler Books, which is publishing the novel, said this is a book for the ages that takes parts of an untold history and mixes it with fiction.

"Haley wrote 'Treason' partly as a researcher and partly as a writer," Koehler said.

When speaking with Haley about the book, he mentioned how the characters would visit her.

"Not like ghosts," Koehler said. "Like any true novelist, the characters would talk with her as part of her imagination. The characters came to life for her."

Much of Haley's fascination with black culture and history developed in her grandmother's kitchen when she was young.

"Her house was like Grand Central Station," Haley said. "There was always someone in the kitchen. Because I was young and they were my elders, I didn't talk. I only listened."

She remembers her grandmother's friends stopping by and talking about hardships and triumphs.

"Their stories became my frame of reference," Haley said. "It was the lens I saw everything through."

She didn't know it at the time, but those stories played an important role in her career, helping her with research for "Roots" and other works.

Haley attended Ohio State University. Despite struggling to keep up with her classmates, most of whom were white, she endured with inspiration from "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Haley.

A mixture of Malcolm's determination to reinvent himself in prison - studying the dictionary word by word in solitary confinement by the light that peaked through under the door - and the words of Alex Haley pushed her to continue.

"I knew I needed to meet the man who wrote this," Haley said.

That desire to meet the author grew over the years as more fellow students drew inspiration from the same book.

The night before she had to defend her dissertation for her doctorate in communications, Haley found out that Alex Haley would be speaking on campus.

"I thought, 'How am I going to do this?' " Haley said.

She managed to get to the packed auditorium to see Alex Haley in the flesh.

"He was humble," Haley recalled. "I later found out he had used black shoe polish to cover the hole in his shoes."

Alex spoke in a monotone voice, yet there was a rhythm to his words that excited the audience. Haley remembers people popping out of their chairs with inspiration.

"There were things he would say that would resonate with some people that they just had to get up," Haley said. "He spoke two hours without a single note card."

Alex talked a lot about his unfinished book project, "Roots." Haley didn't know how or why, but she knew she had to work alongside him.

She finished her doctorate in 1974 and mailed Alex Haley's publicist repeatedly with no response.

As she began an internship, all Haley wanted to do was write and work with Alex.

She applied and interviewed at other universities, but knew her heart belonged to Alex.

"I remember someone telling me to interview at the University of Colorado because they needed someone to chair the African American Studies department," she said. "I was supposed to give a presentation about what I'd do at the school, but I spoke the whole time about wanting to work with Alex."

Haley knew she had messed up the interview. But the silver lining was that a member of the committee knew how to get in touch with Alex.

Time progressed as Haley waited. She rejected job offers from other universities.

"People thought I was crazy," Haley recalled.

Then one fateful day, a receptionist at the office where she was interning caught Haley's attention by waving a yellow envelope in the air.

"She kept saying, 'It came,' " Haley said. "I looked and saw Alex Haley's name. I was shaking so bad I couldn't open it up."

The letter was an invitation and plane ticket to Haley's house in Jamaica.

"I didn't even have a suitcase or the money to get one," Haley said. "But people kept giving me everything I needed to get there."

When she arrived, Haley nervously waited until the entire plane emptied before descending the steps of the airport to find her dream, Alex Haley, covered in sweat from the humidity.

At his house, they talked about "Roots," and she kept inserting ideas from her past into the dialogue - all the things she remembered her grandmother's friends talking about.

Alex Haley, impressed, told her to pack her things in Ohio and move down to work with him.

Haley, a morning person, would get up at 4 a.m. to pore through drafts and research.

"By the time he woke up at noon, I had gone through several drafts," Haley said. "We would sit on the veranda and read through the characters."

They flew to New York to finish the manuscript.

"We had finished all but the last paragraph," Haley said. "It was the middle of a snowstorm and Alex said, 'We should go get coffee.' "

Sitting in a diner, the two drank their coffee and chatted. Then, Alex was silent.

Haley remembers he took out a pen, grabbed a napkin and finished the last paragraph.

"People don't believe me when I say this, but it's true," she said. "There was this radiance around him as he was doing it. I saw it. The waitress saw it, too."

Haley typed the last portion and trudged through the snow to get to the publisher's office.

"Alex had to hide behind a potted plant," Haley said. "He was late on so many deadlines and knew if his publisher saw him, he would be in trouble."

But reading through the narrative, the publisher's anger and fury faded, Haley said.

The book had finally been completed after nearly 12 years of work. It was released in 1976.

From there, the relationship transformed and the two were married in 1977. My was 24 and Alex was 56.

"He wanted to move to Hollywood and become a powerful Hollywood couple," Haley said.

They continued to work together on writing projects.

"Some of those projects still haven't seen the light of day," Haley said.

Alex died in 1992 of a heart attack.

Around that time, members of Haley's family also began to die. Watching her mother die in the late 1990s was one of the hardest things for her.

"I don't like to think about it," Haley said, wiping away tears.

About five years ago, after the majority of her relatives were gone, she decided she needed a fresh start and moved to Las Vegas.

Alex's inspiration has never left her.

"I can hear him encouraging me," Haley said.

She continued to research and write and started digging up the history of Mary Louvestre, a seamstress and a slave who trekked from Norfolk, Va., to Washington, D.C., to reach the Secretary of the Navy.

"We have records of this," Koehler said.

The unknown, filled in by Haley's imagination, is what happened on that 200-mile journey.

Koehler learned about Haley's book idea when she spoke at an event in Norfolk. Haley didn't have a publisher at the time, and Koehler was a fan of Alex Haley and "Roots."

"I knew the Haley name would bring her praise," Koehler said. "You marry that together with a great book and you really have something."

The book is expected to be released in February, in time for Black History Month.

"This book is for everyone," Koehler said.

He added that the book may resonate with people who are personally connected to black history.

Haley hopes to continue with her writing and research. Her goal is to finish work that Alex started, which tracks his white ancestors and merges it with his writings in "Roots" to give a holistic version of American history from multiple perspectives.

"It will be a brilliant work like nobody has ever seen," Haley said. "I would love to get it done for Alex and for me."

Contact Henderson/Anthem View reporter Michael Lyle at mlyle@viewnews.com or 702-387-5201.