 While Haley ultimately deferred to Malcolm X's specific choice of words when composing the manuscript, Wideman writes, "the nature of writing biography or autobiography ... means that Haley's promise to Malcolm, his intent to be a 'dispassionate chronicler', is a matter of disguising, not removing, his authorial presence." Haley played an important role in persuading Malcolm X not to re-edit the book as a polemic against Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam at a time when Haley already had most of the material needed to complete the book, and asserted his authorial agency when the Autobiography's "fractured construction", caused by Malcolm X's rift with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, "overturned the design" of the manuscript and created a narrative crisis. In the Autobiography's epilogue, Haley describes the incident:
