Montreal publisher's Michael Jackson biography out next week
Book was on the presses when news broke of singer's death
Last Updated: Thursday, July 2, 2009 | 5:38 PM ET
CBC News
A Montreal publisher sent an unauthorized biography of Michael Jackson to the printing press Thursday and it could hit bookstores next week.
In a remarkable piece of timing, Transit Publishing had the biography, which was due to hit the streets as Jackson began his London concert series, on the presses on the night Jackson died.
"We were rolling. We had started production of the book when I heard around 6:30 the confirmation of his death," Pierre Turgeon, head of Transit Publishing, told CBC News.
Turgeon said he called the plant and stopped printing.
"From there all of our teams, the editorial team, the author, even the cover designers, went on a work spree of four days — we didn't sleep in four days to fill the bridge," he said.
The book was written by Ian Halperin, the same author who penned an unauthorized biography of Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté.
The Jackson biography, now titled Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson, already covered the story of the King of Pop up to within two weeks of his death.
Turgeon described the book as a "vindication" of Jackson in the face of accusations of child abuse he faced in the 1990s.
'Glory as an artist'
"The book dispelled [these accusations] and shows how they were used as extortion to get the most money out of him," Turgeon said.
"We hope that this book will give him back his reputation as much as we can — his glory as an artist — because we feel that he had been destroyed morally, psychologically and also as an artist by all these accusations and by the way his entourage was pressuring him out of greed to do those London concerts."
Since Jackson's death last Thursday, Halperin has had time to add material that could have been libellous when the singer was alive, Turgeon said.
Among that material is discussion of Jackson's sexuality and what Turgeon describes as evidence that the London shows were too much for Jackson's health.
Turgeon said Jackson's death was surprising and unexpected.
"We knew he was very sick. We knew he was taking a risk by not taking a rest but it came as a shock."
Transit Publishing, a new company that made its debut with Guy Laliberté: The Fabulous Story of the Creator of Cirque du Soleil, has had hundreds of thousands of orders for the Jackson biography from U.S. publishers and booksellers.
