wingnut asshole memoir iced?

Jonah Goldberg’s tome gets all the attention but (in the interest of magnanimity) we ought to mention the another winger tour de force stuck in publishing purgatory. I speak, o’ course, of Roger L. Simon’s memoir.

Near as I can figger, the first mention of it was on his own blog on September 4, 2004. “In part due to this blog,” Simon wrote, “I will be writing my first non-fcition book, a kind of political memoir of the Hollywood left. I will announce more of the publishing details on here next week as they are finalized.”

Nineteen days later — not a week, as he promised — Simon gave us some more details, in a post titled “Peter Collier’s Mistake”:

I mentioned on here a couple of weeks ago that after decades of making things up - writing novels and screenplays - I was now really going to make things up by writing a non-fiction book. I neglected to mention the publisher that is taking this wild risk. It is Peter Collier whose relatively new house Encounter Books has a growing reputation for serious political works.

There wasn’t another mention of it until February of ‘05, when he reported that

…I figured out the MacGuffin of the book I am writing. Yes, it is a non-fiction memoir but it still has a MacGuffin. I am structuring the book somewhat as a mystery - the mystery of why I changed my views and others haven’t. I found a key in the past, my little Rosebud. But I won’t say what it was. That will have to wait for the book…

A month and a week later (March 22, 2005) he reminded us that the book is “a memoir with political overtones.”

Finally, in August of ‘05, we learn some details! Simon divulges that his home is

the very spot where Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe slept for most of their brief marrige. Yes, my office was once their bedroom and my desk is exactly where their bed would have been

and that readers will learn how Roger

found out that it really was true and that, as a previous owner told me, “the studio” had saved her from bankruptcy by “renting the house for Joe and Marilyn.”

Hot!

April ‘05, a Simon commenter asks if his book is titled Left at Hollywood and Vine and “are you further along the road to publication?”

Since then, there’s been no mention of the book at all. (The Encounter site isn’t terribly helpful, since Simon isn’t listed as one of the house authors although the Writer’s Rep site confirms the title and suggests that the book in February.)

What happened?

Anyhoo, I’ve placed a call to Encounter’s publicity department — “Hi! This is Alex DeLarge from the New York Press…” — and I’ll update as needed.