David Miscavige, leader of Scientology, will be the subject of a book written by his father.
© Scientology Media / via Wikimedia Commons

Ron Miscavige, Sr. has reportedly inked a book deal with St. Martin’s Press, for a memoir about his son David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology. Tony Ortega writes for his blog about Scientology, The Underground Bunker, that the senior Miscavige has been working on the book—to be titled If He Dies, He Dies—for years.

The title comes from an alleged incident earlier this year, when the Los Angeles Times’s Kim Christensen reported that David Miscavige had his father placed under surveillance, per Wisconsin police reports. When the latter appeared to be having a heart attack, the private investigators (reportedly!) keeping an eye on him asked the Church leader if they should intervene, only to be (allegedly!) told, “If he dies, he dies.”

The Church of Scientology has fervently denied this story. After Andy Lewis wrote about the upcoming book for the Hollywood Reporter, they issued the following statement:

As for the purported emergency incident involving an investigator and the second-hand account of an alleged conversation containing a despicably false quote, Mr. Miscavige’s attorney, Michael Lee Hertzberg, is on record stating that Mr. Miscavige does not know the investigator, has never heard of the investigator, has never met the investigator, has never spoken to the investigator, never hired the investigator and never directed any investigations by him.

So let me be clear: No such conversation with Mr. Miscavige ever took place and any claim that one did is provable bullshit.

There’s always interest in Scientology and what goes on behind the church’s closed doors, as evidenced by the success of Lawrence Wright’s book about it, Going Clear, and the ensuing adaptation into a documentary for HBO by Alex Gibney. The Hollywood Reporter’s Lewis rightly points out that “a true insider account of life in the church and a full portrait of its leader by his father would be a blockbuster book.” While a publication date has not yet been announced, Ortega writes that Ron Miscavige hopes to have it out by next spring.