Levi Johnston ‘Got The Shaft,’ Say Levi Johnston’s Ghostwriters

Levi Johnston is not a popular man. The 21-year-old has already been voted Alaska’s least favorite human being. But Johnston is getting the shaft, claim husband-and-wife team James and Lois Cowan.

Who? James and Lois Cowan are the ghostwriters of Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs, Johnston’s new 320-page book that hit bookstore shelves yesterday.

The Cowans volunteered to write Johnston’s memoir after seeing Sarah Palin portray Johnston as a “deadbeat dad” and “scumbag.” The couple felt sorry for Levi, and wrote to his agent offering their services. “What we saw was a kid, a nice kid,” Lois Cowan said. “Someone needed to rise to his rescue.”

As the Cowans were based in Florida, they took two month-long trips to Alaska, interviewing Johnston for countless hours. Meetings took place in Johnston’s Wasilla home, in the Cowan’s hotel room, and with Johnston in his pickup truck.

They grew to like him, and the feelings were mutual. In the acknowledgements section of his book, Johnston writes that, “The Cowans […] thought I was getting the shaft.” He adds elsewhere:

“We got beyond the ghostwriter-author work, and had conversations because we enjoyed spending time together. They acted like another couple of parents — pushing, prodding, expecting me to understand and explain a confusing series of events and a time when I often chose to bury my head under my quilt.”

The $25 tome charts Johnston’s journey from a simple hunting and fishing lifestyle in Wasilla, Alaska to being centre of attention in the media scrum that was the 2008 National Republican Convention.