It was the morning of Oct. 3, 2008, in St. Louis, and Sarah Palin's relationship with John McCain's braintrust started to unravel.

Hours before, onstage at Washington University, Palin had more than exceeded expectations with an aggressive debate performance that began when she asked Joe Biden, "Can I call you Joe?" (It was a much-calculated question, we know now.)

The political news of the morning was about more than the debate. McCain's flagging campaign had pulled out of Michigan, in effect handing Barack Obama 17 electoral votes. Palin wasn't pleased, and in an interview with Fox News' Carl Cameron, she said she had fired off an e-mail asking McCain aides to reconsider.

"I want to get back to Michigan, and I want to try," she said, framed in the shot by the Gateway Arch.

In the regimented world of presidential campaigns, McCain's handlers were livid.

"The word came hurtling down that I had been 'off-script' with Cameron," Palin writes in her new book. "Of course, it's pretty easy to issue candid, off-script messages when there is no script to begin with.

"It wasn't the end of the world, though, and I hoped headquarters would forgive me and move on. They didn't. One or more McCain senior staffers would later anonymously tell reporters that I was 'going rogue.'"

A year later, Palin has reason to thank those McCain staffers for their choice of words. They provided the title of her wildly popular "Going Rogue: An American Life."

The reception last week of "Going Rogue" rivals the days after Palin landed unexpectedly on the GOP ticket, when Republicans gathering for their convention in St. Paul all but ignored McCain, gushing about the energy brought to the ticket by the little-known, well-presented governor of Alaska.

It was that way again last week when Palin embarked on her book tour: In Fort Wayne, Ind., a department store distributed 1,000 wristbands to people who each could buy no more than two copies of her book.

Whether she becomes a presidential candidate, a talk-show host, a leader of a populist revolt or something unforeseen, Palin's future is sure to be chronicled in millions of words. For now, the words getting attention are on the 413 pages of her book, which became a New York Times best-seller a month before its scheduled release.

The first half of "Going Rogue" is devoted to Palin's life before becoming famous, the second to settling scores with the McCain advisers and with a "Washington-New York media constellation" that she regards as biased and cruel.

Her life story is as much about the exotic Alaskan wilderness as about Palin herself. It's doubtful after growing up around mountain men that she'll ever join the vegetarian ranks.

"I love meat," she proclaims in the book. "I eat pork chops, thick bacon burgers and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well done steak. But I especially love moose and caribou. I always remind people from outside our state that there's plenty of room for all of Alaska's animals — right next to the mashed potatoes."

Palin writes about growing up Christian ("the most alive congregation was our Assembly of God") and about her instant attraction to Todd Palin, the rangy fellow who chewed tobacco, had a DUI under his belt and who told buddies that Sarah Heath didn't know how to kiss.

She writes revealingly about family and motherhood, including the baby she lost:

"The doctor said coldly, 'there's nothing alive in there.' Her bluntness shocked me. I felt sick and hollow and burst into tears."

The irritation that campaign manager Steve Schmidt and other McCain aides felt toward Palin is a familiar tale. She reveals new dimensions, complaining about being constantly prevented from being herself and talking to reporters — even threatened with being physically blocked from journeying to the press section of her campaign plane.

On the night of the Republicans' crushing loss, she writes, McCain aides refused to allow her to give the speech she had practiced.

"When I got the news I wasn't speaking, it felt to me like some kind of punishment, a slap in the face," she writes.

Palin devotes little space to the substance of the campaign and does not signal what her future might hold.

But in the book's final sentence, she manages a last dig at the McCain aides while referring to her daughter:

"I want to show Piper the way to Michigan."