Too Close for Comfort? Author Penning Sarah Palin Expose Moves Next Door to Her

May 27, 2010— -- The fences in Sarah Palin's Wasilla, Alaska, neighborhood are about to get bigger.

The former Alaska governor has a new neighbor and it's not someone she is happy about. Author and investigative reporter Joe McGinniss, who has written critically of Palin in the past, rented the house next to the former GOP vice presidential candidate so he can write a book about her.

The Palins, whose ever-expanding compound is bustling with construction, are putting up a new fence that they hope will block McGinniss' view. Palin took to Facebook Wednesday to complain about McGinniss.

"Yes, that Joe McGinniss. Here he is about 15 feet away on the neighbor's rented deck overlooking my children's play area and my kitchen window," the former governor wrote. "We're sure to have a doozey to look forward to with this treasure he's penning. Wonder what kind of material he'll gather while overlooking Piper's bedroom, my little garden, and the family's swimming hole?"

Palin also called into conservative commentator Glenn Beck's radio show Wednesday to express her frustration.

"He's an odd character," she said. "If you look at his history, and the things that he's written and that the things he's been engaged in, but you know as they say, fences make for good neighbors and Todd and his buddies started the fence yesterday and it's looking good."

In 2009, McGinniss wrote a critical piece on Palin and her natural gas pipeline plan for Portfolio, a Conde Nast publication. His book, tentatively titled "Sarah Palin's Year of Living Dangerously," is expected to be released in 2011.

McGinniss' publisher Broadway Books said in a statement that the bestselling author will investigate Palin up close and in depth, but will be mindful of her privacy.

"McGinniss is the author of 'Going to Extremes,' a classic book about Alaska, and his work-in-progress returns him to the 49th state to examine Sarah Palin's significance as both a political and cultural phenomenon and as an embodiment of the contradictory forces that shaped Alaska as it moved into its second half-century of statehood," the statement read. "Well regarded for his in-depth, up-close reporting, Mr. McGinniss will be highly respectful of his subject's privacy as he investigates her public activities."

Palin's own second book is slated to hit bookshelves in November.

McGinniss, who is being accused of invading the Palins' privacy, himself claimed that his was being invaded when ABC News knocked at his door to get a comment.

"Get off, you're trespassing," McGinniss said through his window. "I am going to have to call the Wasilla police. Get off my property, now, I am going to put in the call."

Neighbors say the author's strategy of living alongside Palin is strange at best.

"I think it's a little creepy," one woman told ABC News. "I'd be a little creeped out."

Thanks to the Palins' new fence, McGinniss' view of their property is mostly gone and he himself has now put up "No Trespassing" signs around his rented house.

Police in town are watching closely but they say McGinniss is renting the house lawfully, and that they haven't heard of any criminal activity so far.