13 Surprising Celebrity Novelists

The list, care of the AV Club.

From said list...

7. Gene Hackman, Wake Of The Perdido Star (1999), Payback At Morning Peak (2011)Of all the collaborations for Gene Hackman to pursue, a series of historical-fiction novels with underwater archaeologist Daniel Lenihan was probably the least expected. Their first project together, the seafaring 19th-century pirate adventure Wake Of The Perdido Star, was published in 1999, and two more collaborative novels followed after Hackman retired from acting in 2003: 2004’s Depression-set Justice For None and 2008’s Escape From Andersonville, about a Civil War prison break. Although Hackman reportedly has some voiceover work in the upcoming Martin Scorsese film The Wolf Of Wall Street, he’s been far more prolific as a writer recently. His first solo novel, a Western paperback called Payback At Morning Peak, came out in 2011.

8. Johnny Cash, Man In White (1986)Johnny Cash’s only novel, Man In White, is a fictional biography of St. Paul, the fanatical, murderous enemy of Christianity who experienced a visionary conversion on the road to Damascus and became an equally fanatical proselytizer for the new religion. The book, which Cash began writing in the ’70s, grew out of the same period as The Gospel Road, the 1973 movie about the last days of Christ that Cash produced, co-wrote, and narrated. (He eventually grew frustrated while writing the book and set it aside, only to resume work on it at the urging of Billy Graham.) By the time Man In White appeared, Johnny Cash, the reformed pill-popping wild man, was probably the best-known “saved” figure in popular culture, and the book is most notable for how openly he identifies with Paul, a figure who even hardcore Christians tend to regard as more than a little scary.