Sarah Palin's Unwanted Neighbor, Author Joe McGinness, Leaving Alaska

Joe McGinniss, the best-selling author who moved in next door to Sarah Palin to get the scoop for a book he is writing about her, is packing it in after three-and-a-half months in Wasilla.

McGinniss said he's leaving his rental home on Sunday, satisfied that he didn't have unpleasant encounters with anyone in Wasllla, except perhaps Sarah Palin's husband, Todd. He said the locals were for the most part willing to talk about their former governor and mayor, and offered him small gifts, ranging from blueberry pies to handguns, the Associated Press reported Saturday.

His arrival in May inspired the Palin family to build an addition to an 8-foot board fence in an effort to block his view of their lakeside home. It also got him a visit from Todd Palin. "As I told Todd back in May -- he came over to get in my face about moving in there -- I said, 'You're not even going to know I'm there. A lot of the time, I'm not going to be here. and when I am, I mind my own business. I don't care what happens on your side of the fence. That's not why I'm here.'"

McGinniss said he got off on the wrong foot with Sarah Palin when he wrote a 2008 magazine story, called "Pipe Dreams," that minimized her role in securing a natural gas pipeline project for Alaska. He won't say what's going to be in his new Palin book, but he gave a hint in an interview with the AP. Palin "presses a button," McGinniss said, "and what comes back is hate... I got some of the ugliest, most vile e-mails directed at me, my grandchildren, my children, my wife -- just ugly, ugly stuff."

There was no immediate response from the Palins' to McGinniss' departure, or his comments, the AP said.