“Legal problems” may delay Conrad Black’s memoir of his legal problems

There are rumours floating around concerning delays in the publishing date for Conrad Black’s much-ballyhooed trial memoir The Fight of My Life. Until as recently as last week, his Lordship’s publisher, McClelland & Stewart president Douglas Pepper, was saying the doorstopper would be out this October. However, a source close to Black reports that “legal problems” could push it out a year to fall 2009. Black’s busy litigation schedule may have something to do with it.

Pepper confirms the delay but insists it has only to do with logistics, and that with luck it will hit the shelves by next May. “The schedule was too tight for our liking and, for the betterment of the book and as we are dealing with an author in extraordinary circumstances, we made a judgment. It is such an important book, fabulous and honest, that we needed to give it the schedule it deserves.”

“And that,” Pepper added for reasons that really need no explanation, “is the truth.”

• Conrad Black to tell his side of the legal story [Winnipeg Sun]• Jailed tycoon Black writing new memoir [Toronto Star]